Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (26 page)

Meer said nothing for a long moment, then, very quietly, “You’re not human, are you?”

That popped Deiq’s eyes open and brought him up on one elbow.

Meer stared at him, nervous but determined. “When I found you wandering, you spoke in a language I’d never heard. And your skin . . . looked almost like scales.” He looked down at his hands and swallowed hard. “I thought I heard your voice in my head when I found you. Asking me for shelter. It was . . . frightening. I really thought you were a demon.”

“But you still helped me,” Deiq said with matching quiet, his chest tight with near-panic and astonishment. “Thank you, Meer.”

“It’s what I’ve been led to do all my life,” the priest said. “When I was a child I tried to save baby badgers, wild cats, and even a snake once. When I grew up into proper training I felt drawn to help those nobody else would touch; the criminals, the shunned and scorned and evil. Somebody has to do it, I suppose, and it seems that somebody is me.” He raised a drawn expression and met Deiq’s gaze. “What do I have to do to get you to safety, s’e?”

Deiq couldn’t speak for a long moment. “You’re very brave, Meer,” he said when his throat unstuck. “I don’t want to hurt you. Is there someone in the tower that . . . maybe isn’t so nice? Someone the world might be better off without?”

Meer looked down at his hands, frowning; traced lines with a finger on first one palm, then the other, before answering. “I won’t deny someone else their chance at redemption,” he said. “Even the most cruel and evil people in this world might choose a better path in the next moment. I can’t see the future, and I won’t end anyone’s life over past actions. So if you have to take a life, take mine, s’e.”

Deiq blinked, incredulous. “I don’t want to kill you, Meer; but what I need will. And that would be a dreadful waste of a good man.” His own honesty surprised him as much as Meer’s willingness to sacrifice himself for a stranger.

“Are you evil, s’e?” Meer asked. “Are you a demon from the old tales?”

“No. I’m not a demon. And I don’t think . . . that I’m evil.” He paused; then the same insane honesty prodded him into adding, “But I know I’ve done evil things. Without understanding them as such, as first, and then without being able to control them, later. But I’m trying, Meer. I’m trying to stop doing those things, and that’s why I don’t want to hurt you. The world needs men like you more than it needs me.”

Meer rested a hand on Deiq’s arm. Hunger surged at the contact, and Deiq began to breathe heavily, fighting against the cresting need.

“No, s’e,” the priest said, his blue eyes eerily serene. “You are exactly what this world needs. You are one of those who I’ve been put on this earth to save. If my life helps you turn to the good, it’s worth the sacrifice to me.”

“You’re mad,” Deiq panted, staring at the priest, baffled by the man’s calm acceptance of imminent death. He ought to have been howling for Deiq to die; should have been calling in his brethren to destroy the monster as it lay helpless before them. It would ensure Meer’s place in heaven, as Deiq understood Church philosophy; why was the man just sitting there?

Meer smiled. “I’ve been told that I’m mad before,” he admitted. “But I felt those words, as I spoke them, as though they came from my soul, not my lips. I think that’s a sign from the gods that I’m doing the right thing. I’ll die content, if the gods are with me.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “There are others who believe as I do. If you would go find them, when you’re done, and help them with their efforts to keep this city from the control of men who don’t understand the value of life . . . I’d be grateful.”

“I will,” Deiq husked, then gave in and gripped Meer’s arm, digging his fingers in hard.

Gently, he admonished himself, and fought to begin the draw with a faint feather-touch rather than a desperate grab. But even that light touch set Meer arching his back, his eyes bulging, crooked top teeth sinking into his lower lip in an futile effort to stop his scream.

Deiq tried to use the initial surge of energy to move them elsewhere, away from the pristine, dangerous calm of this room—and failed. Before he could try again, a red haze descended, and he fell helplessly into the moment’s endless desire, washed along on a river of agonized human screaming.

And as he emerged from that small madness and began to take the step that would take him away from this place into safety, a golden haze washed over him—

—the white walls faded into rank darkness, and a smug voice said, Oh, how nice. I didn’t think you’d be ready again so soon. . . .

Deiq opened his eyes to the now, relieved to find darkness surrounding him again. The lamp had gone out during the telling, and Eredion hadn’t moved to relight it.

“Oh, gods,” Eredion said blankly after a time. “Oh, Deiq. Good gods and spirits.”

Deiq stared at the ceiling and didn’t answer; Eredion sat by his side and said nothing more for the rest of the night.

Grateful for the rain, which made a perfect excuse for not returning to Peysimun Mansion, Alyea slept, ate, took her turns watching over Deiq, and rested, treasuring the quiet. It felt like a drink she’d been craving without knowing its name: time alone to
think
, or to simply stare at the walls, as she chose.

So much had happened since her encounter with Pieas in a back palace hallway had sent her racing to protect Wian; now Pieas was dead, Wian had disappeared, and the king was no longer likely to offer unquestioning support for anything Alyea brought before him.

So much had changed, and not just with her status. Before she left for the desert, this much time alone would have begun rasping against her nerves, and she would have gone hunting for a dance, a walking-partner, any distraction. Now, the peace of an aqeyva trance felt more and more welcome, and she sat on her striped mat often, letting her mind fill with quiet and empty of thoughts.

The dark grey day blended into darker nights, all filled with torrential downpours and howling winds; she and Eredion ate meals together now, in Deiq’s suite. When Deiq was awake, he accepted a few sips of water and a few bites of food, but most of the time he slept, barely seeming to breathe. And he said little to nothing, his dark stare fixed on the ceiling, seemingly lost in his own brooding thoughts.

On the third morning after the attack, the weather broke; and Deiq got out of bed to join them at the small table for breakfast.

Eredion, without comment, rose and pulled the servant-summoner; waited by the door and sent the servant who responded after another tray of food.

“A large one,” Alyea heard him say. “Twice what we asked for, at least.”

Returning to the table, he stepped around behind Deiq and began unwinding the bandages. Alyea wrinkled her nose at the rising smell of old sweat, pus, blood, and dirt. Eredion grimaced a few times as well.

Deiq reached for an orange and simply bit into it whole, not bothering to peel it first, and ignored everything else. His eyes held a vague, hazed look; Alyea wasn’t even sure he saw anything other than the food in his hand.

Alyea stood, unable to face eating with that stench in the air, and circled round to see what lay underneath the rotten bandages.

Eredion dropped the last of the bandages in a heap on the floor and stroked Deiq’s matted hair aside with a deft, delicate touch. The motion revealed only a strip of faintly over-pink skin, bare of hair but otherwise unremarkable.

Alyea gasped, astounded; she’d expected an ugly scar at the least. Eredion sighed a little, then scooped up the filthy wrappings and took them to the door, again pulling the servant-summoner; handed them off and came back to the table.

“Deiq,” he said, seating himself across from the ha’ra’ha.

Deiq made no response other than an unfocused glance, apparently more interested in reaching for another orange. Eredion shook his head and leaned back in his chair, motioning Alyea to sit down again.

“Let him be,” Eredion advised.

“Have you done this before?” she demanded, sliding into her chair, unable to take her gaze from Deiq.

“Not with a ha’ra’ha,” Eredion said, “but yes. I’ve tended some ugly wounds in the recent past.” He cleared his throat. “Let him eat as much as he likes. I expect he’ll go back to bed afterwards and sleep a while more. He might be coherent next time he wakes.”

“Is he sleepwalking now?”

“Not exactly. I think he’s just focused really tightly, and doesn’t have anything to spare for conversation.” He paused, watching Deiq finish the second orange and reach for breakfast bread. “I think leaving him completely alone might actually be best, at this point. Why don’t you go tell the king he’s awake? I’ll stay until he goes back to sleep.”

The king only held Open Audience three times a tenday: Syrtaday, Fireday, and Windsday. The audience about the tath-shinn had been on Syrtaday; three dawns past that put it at Waterday. Alyea worked her way through the maze of palace hallways, stairs, and rooms, knowing just where Oruen would be.

She found him, as expected, on a tiny, semi-enclosed patio, facing off against one of his advisors over a game of
chabi
. This morning’s victim, an elderly man wearing the striped robe of a chamberlain’s clerk, looked up with a distinct expression of relief when Alyea stepped through the doorway. He hastily stood to offer her his seat.

Oruen stood as well, and bowed, his expression wavering between solemn and mischievous. “Lord Alyea,” he said. “Your presence does me honor.”

Alyea bit her lip against a laugh. The advisor blinked, then dropped into a bow of his own, rather deeper than the king’s.

“I think we can resume the game another day, Elsin,” Oruen murmured. “Thank you for keeping me company this morning.”

Elsin bobbed another deep bow and fled without argument.

Alyea let her grin surface and sat down, studying the board. He’d taken the northern side, and chosen black as his color; his
furun
, the king-coin, was two squares away from the northeast fortress, so it had been unlocked. Which fit what she remembered of Oruen’s style: keeping options open, to be able to move the furun out of danger. Elsin’s furun had also obviously been unlocked; it sat three squares away from the nearest fortress, open to capture.

“How many games have you played so far this morning?”

“This would have been the first with Elsin,” Oruen said, seating himself across from her.

She could feel his gaze, and didn’t look up; instead, she slid a white
shassen
two paces forward, from Water into the northeast sector. Elsin hadn’t been doing so badly; she could see that his attempts to attack the opposing fortress had prompted Oruen to pull several pieces over as defense, but Elsin had left his own furun out and undefended in the process, and Oruen was about to close a trap around it.

“You would have won in four moves.”

“Three,” he said, and hopped a black
ayn
three diagonally and two forward: one wall of his planned trap. She wouldn’t get her furun back into safety in time. “He didn’t understand the game one bit. Almost nobody does.”

She examined the layout, cocking her head to one side, thinking about the possibilities. No point trying to move her furun back to protected ground; which only left attacking as a distraction. She studied the northeast sector more closely—and smiled.

Her initial move had put white control into the northeast sector, which meant she could move the greys. Oruen had been so intent on his planned trap setup that he’d missed what that meant for his own defenses: she moved a grey shassen sideways and said, “Trapped.”

Every exit route was covered by one of her white pieces or blocked by his own accumulation of defenses; with the grey cube out of the way, her white shassen, only three paces away, had a clear shot at the furun. All of his black pieces were too far away, chasing after her furun, to intervene. Technically, it was a stalemate; he could move a grey piece to block her, and she could promptly move it back out of the way. Custom dictated ceding the game to her at this point, though.

He stared at the board, then stared at her. “What the hells?”

She shrugged, more than a little surprised at herself; she’d always been dreadful at chabi. The rules were complex and confusing. She’d played with Oruen a few times for idle amusement and given up in favor of easier games.

It had become one of the few complaints his advisors and courtiers held against him: he kept trying to teach them how to play; insisted that at least one person sit with him, every single Waterday morning, to learn the southern strategy game. Alyea assumed Chac had taught him, but she’d never asked.

Today, though, the moves seemed oddly simple, the consequences clear;
kahar
for wind,
ayn
for water,
shassen
for goods, and
furun
for coins. It was a desert game: all the moves and strategies reflected the simple principles of survival in a dry, hostile environment. Each player chose black or white as a color; greys were servant pieces, movable by anyone with a presence in that sector. Player pieces could be captured; servant pieces couldn’t. Capturing the opposing player’s furun won the game, but it could only be captured outside a fortress; inside the fortress, the furun could be overcome if it was “ringed”—surrounded on five sides by grey pieces, with an opposing presence inside the sector.

Complicated, but so many chabi rules made real-world sense now: for example, servants went wherever their masters told them to, like those left behind after Conclave to help Scratha. And while those loaned-out servants currently obeyed Scratha, their loyalty would revert in an instant if their original masters stepped in to take them away; which could leave the lord of a fortress helpless in his own home.

Oruen began resetting the board. “Tea, coffee, breakfast,” he said vaguely, waving a hand towards the sideboard.

Alyea shook her head. “No, thank you. I came to tell you Deiq is awake.”

Oruen paused, the white furun in his hand, and looked at her for a long, quiet moment before returning his attention to setting the board. “I hear you’ve been sitting at his bedside.”

“Along with Lord Eredion. Yes.”

He placed the white furun on the northwest sector of the board, claiming white as his color, and sat back, giving her a challenging stare. “Your move.”

She sighed, knowing he wouldn’t let her get out of it, and took a few moments to study the board and think about her new understanding of the rules. At last she set her own black, coin-shaped furun on the board, claiming the southeast sector, then moved her shassen forward one step: goods advancing.

“Why?” he said, not looking up from the pieces. He moved a northeastern white ayn two paces south and three southeast; water spilling from one place to another.

“Because he’s hurt. And your healer wasn’t much use.”

“But why is that
your
problem?”

She studied the board for a bit, thinking over where he was likely going with that ayn move; it gave him possession of the central Air block, which held two grey ayn. She finally mirrored it with her own, contesting his control and giving herself the option of moving the grey ayns.

He moved the grey shassen in his sector back three paces: probably angling to free his locked-in furun. Not the most efficient move; he should have gotten his white shassen out of the way first. He still wasn’t taking her seriously.

She moved her grey south shassen into the southeast sector and bumped the next grey shassen over one square; then answered his question. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He moved the grey shassen west one square, as she’d expected, his mouth twitching as though he’d just realized his mistake. He didn’t answer her question right away, his attention entirely on the game.

A few moves later, he had captured one of her kahar and she had captured one of his ayn. Setting the black kahar aside, he finally said, “Because he’s bad news, Alyea. Every time he shows up, everything goes all to the hells. I wish I could ban him from the city outright, but he practically owns half of it.”

She glanced up, startled. “Really?”

He snorted. “When you get through all the misdirections, yes. For one thing, he’s behind the southland Farms, which means he’s responsible for supplying almost half of the produce vendors in the open marketplace; Darden and F’Heing together supply the other half.”

“What about the northern farmers?”

“Minimal. There’s been a boring-bug influx, and it wiped out half the crop this year so far. And now this damned storm has destroyed any new local plantings, and will probably leave an epidemic of grey-leaf or root rot in its wake.”

Alyea moved her westernmost shassen forward three paces. “You sound like a farmer.”

“I sound like a king,” he said sourly. “I had no idea how many godsdamned details are involved, or I would have run like all the hells were at my heels when Chac approached me.”

He stared at the board for a while, then shook his head.

“I can’t care about this right now,” he said. “You’d probably win, anyway. You obviously understand the game now. How often did you play, while you were in the south?”

“Never,” she said. She didn’t think she would have won, actually, but didn’t feel like finishing the game either. He aimed a skeptical glance at her. “No, really. I swear.”

“I believe you,” he sighed. “This has all become a gigantic mess. I still can’t believe Chac was a traitor. And Micru! He was the best of my Hidden.”

Alyea said nothing. She picked up a white ayn and turned it over in her hands, rubbing a thumb against the smooth whitestone cylinder, looking at the kaen-marks on one end; when that side was showing, it could move forward or backwards, instead of only one direction. It only went kaen-side up when it had crossed into the opposing player’s territory: with her new understanding of the philosophy behind the game, she saw a reflection of that rule in her own life.

Her visit to the southlands had changed everything.

Looking up, she found Oruen watching her with a thoughtful expression.

“You’ve come back, not just with a title, but with a much sharper mind,” he said. “I expected the first. Not the second.”

She frowned, then conceded him points for honesty, and said, “You didn’t expect anything like what I went through once I cleared Bright Bay borders, I think. I hope not.”

He watched her without speaking, his gaze suddenly hooded.

“How much
did
you know about what Chac had planned?” she asked. “Did you know about the heir to Scratha, and his teyanain alliance?”

He blinked like an owl and stayed silent, not admitting anything aloud; which said everything.

“You almost got me
killed
,” she said, setting the piece down on the stone board with a hard click.

“But instead you’re a desert lord,” he pointed out. “And you’re more powerful than you ever dreamed of being.”

She stood and turned her back on him, staring out through the arches to the small garden of rosemary and blue sage beyond. The rising sun caught glimmers of dew into tiny rainbows, and she felt overwhelmed by how much water surrounded her, how much northerns took for granted every day of their lives.

“Do you expect me to thank you?” she said, watching a fat black bee bumble its way across the flowers. Her lack of anger surprised her a little; she felt only a dreadful, resigned weariness. Whatever she’d expected, this was the reality, and always had been: maneuvering for the best result. It was all a game, with people as pieces.

“No,” he said. “Do you expect
me
to thank you for your invaluable service?”

She snorted and turned, crossing her arms over her chest. “No.”

His mouth pulled sideways in a dry almost-smile.

“I’m glad you’re home safely,” he said, and stood. “I’m sorry for using you.”

He moved forward to stand in front of her, and put his hands on her shoulders. She stood very still, her mouth dry. When she’d left Bright Bay, the look now in his eyes would have meant everything to her; but all she could think of at the moment was Lord Filin edging steadily closer.