Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (31 page)

He reached for the next jug.

“I killed Pieas,” she said, not sure why she’d said it, except that she’d suddenly remembered the kinship. Eredion had been Pieas’s uncle.

“I know.” He uncapped the jug and rubbed the mouth of it thoughtfully as he stared at her. “Thanks. He was getting to be a pain in the ass.”

“
What?
”

“You heard what the servant girl said about him,” Eredion said roughly. “If you hadn’t killed him, I was about ready to arrange a fatal accident for him myself.”

“He was your
nephew
,” she said, stunned. Deiq’s comment about the tath-shinn echoed through memory:
She’s kin. Whatever her crimes, she’s kin . . .

“He was an ass,” Eredion said, apparently not the least bit concerned over blood ties himself. “And he went way over the line a number of times. If he’d at least been intelligently discreet, I could have overlooked it. But he liked to indulge, and he liked to boast, and he wouldn’t listen when I warned him he was drawing too much attention. He really thought it was a good thing that he had ‘street contacts’; said they’d be valuable to me one day. I tried to tell him he had built up the wrong
kind
of contacts, and that they were more damaging than useful. He said I was a fool, and we never agreed on the matter.”

He studied her for a moment in silence, still rubbing the jug lightly.

“You don’t understand yet. But you will. Give it some time. You’ll learn to look long-term. Nothing looks quite the same when you realize you’ll outlive most of the people around you. And Pieas would have died of an overdose or some stupid thing soon enough anyway.”

“He’d
stopped
,” Alyea said, feeling an unexpected need to defend the dead Sessin boy. “He’d promised his sister to clean himself up, so that she might have a chance with Scratha.”

Eredion’s hand stilled on the jug, his eyebrows quirking up.

“Did he? Well, it’s good you killed him before he could lapse, then.”

Alyea stood, unable to believe her ears. Somehow, the echo of Pieas’s last words—
Best not give me a chance to ruin it, don’t you think?
—made her even angrier than before.

“Oh, sit down, damn it,” Eredion ordered, looking disgusted. “Don’t you even think about storming out of here in high indignation. Pieas was another one of those grains of sand I mentioned earlier. A larger one, but not more than a pebble. Forget about him.” He lifted the jug to his lips, then offered it to Alyea. She shook her head but sat back down slowly.

“You sound so . . .
cold
,” she said.

“No. I’ve just had to get selective, over the years, on what things to care about.”

He looked at her expression and sighed, then set the jug back down on the floor. Leaning forward, he clasped his hands together between his knees, elbows set on his thighs.

“Look,” he said. “I know he was my nephew. I know that my sister is grieving over her son, and my niece Nissa is mourning her twin. Believe me, I understand the kin ties involved here. But I have to look at it differently than my sister does. I
have
to care more that you found a way to end an ongoing problem without bringing disgrace on my Family name. My sister’s business is raising her children and running a household, and she does that, by and large, very well. My business is keeping Sessin Family in good standing with the southern community and with the northern king. And I do that, by and large,
very
damn well. Sometimes the two businesses conflict. It’s that simple, Alyea. You’ll have to face that choice yourself, sooner or later. It’ll be harder on you, because your family has no idea how to handle a desert lord. That’s going to get rough. But if you bend to favor them, you’re going to wind up causing them more pain than if you’d just done your job. I should have killed Pieas long ago. It’s my weakness that stopped me. I’m fond of my sister, and I held off, hoping to find some way to turn him around and save her the sorrow of his funeral. I won’t make that mistake again, and half her grief right now is that she knows it—and knows she never should have asked me to spare him in the first place.”

He drew a deep breath and let it out again, but didn’t reach for the jug.

“And that long speech,” he said, with a wry smile, “wore off the last chance I had of getting properly drunk tonight. There’s not enough left for me to try again, and I’ve lost interest in any case.”

“I’m sorry,” Alyea said, and meant it. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“It’s as well you did,” Eredion sighed. “Getting drunk never really solves anything, does it?”

Alyea smiled. “It’s a good way to forget sometimes.”

“Ah,” Eredion said, shaking his head, “but I can’t possibly drink enough for
that
; so what’s the point, really?”

Green peppers, red peppers, black beans, red squash, hard squash, cabba root; sage and rosemary and garlic and onions. Water. How much water? And sunlight. Have to put up the shade tents soon. Wind. What season is it? Have to watch the winds, have to stake and cage. Gods, what did I get myself into?

Deiq drifted through memory, lost in exhaustion, feeling cut loose in time and space. But no: he’d started the Farms years ago, before Alyea was born. They didn’t need him any longer. The water canals and pipes were finished, the ground turned from wasteland to fertile soil; the farmers understood how to keep the land from returning to desert, and the Farms had long since become self-supporting, even successful. A small percentage of the profits funneled to a holding company in Stass, and from there to several other of Deiq’s projects—including, most recently, funding a small collective at the edge of Bright Bay.

Not all the priests had been evil. Not all the priests had murdered, tortured, and destroyed life. Some had fought back, even at the expense of their own lives . . .

I won’t deny someone else their chance at redemption
, Meer said, his voice gaining resolution with each word. Deiq could almost see the walls of the sickroom lofting around them, cool and pale; could hear the faint movements of other humans moving about the Bright Bay Northern Church Tower. Far below their feet, someone screamed, a dying wail of torment drawn out by the skilled hands of Rosin Weatherweaver’s questioners.

If my life helps you turn to the good, it’s worth the sacrifice to me . . . There are others who believe as I do. If you would help them with their efforts . . . I’d be grateful.

Deiq moaned, half-conscious:
Where/when am I? The palace . . . the palace.

Where he’d spoken to Oruen . . . when? Just moments ago, it seemed. . . .

He strode through the palace halls, filled with a simmering, shimmery anger that threatened to loose him into ripping apart everyone in his path; anger being marginally safer than guilt-stricken grief.

Time slid.

Oruen waved the guards off, and they picked up the fools who had tried to stop him as they retreated from the room. . . .

The argument blurred by:
You can’t just empty the Tower and send all the priests away! Don’t you understand they didn’t all support Mezarak, much less Rosin and Ninnic?

And Oruen’s stubborn refusal to listen; an exchange of escalating insults, at which point Eredion stepped in and redirected the fight into saner conversation.

At least grant them space at the edge of town, those who wish to stay. There are those abandoned cottages . . . they can be repaired. I’ll fund it. All of it. Wholly. In perpetuity. . . And give me the Tower. Don’t rip it down; give it to me.

He still didn’t entirely understand why he’d insisted on that point. Somehow, the destruction of the tower felt linked, in a hazy way, to invalidating the last scraps of meaning in the sacrifice Meer had made; he couldn’t bear it.

In the end, with Eredion translating heat into reason, Oruen had agreed to it all. Deiq had set up a stipend for the priests and taken over their tower; and left with an unspoken understanding not ever to risk appearing in front of this king again.

He had no idea what the priests did with the granted land. He’d never wanted to know. Had avoided even thinking about the cottages, the priests, Meer . . . the pain, the betrayal, the madness and cowardice of flight.

But then Eredion had called in that long-ago debt of an agonized moonlit night for Alyea’s sake, and everything had avalanched impossibly fast, dragging Deiq back into human politics, back in front of a king who would rather see him dead than tagging the heels of a former lover.

And isn’t he going to be pissed when he realizes she’ll be in my bed sooner or
later. . . .

He found no laughter waiting behind the thought, only a bleak misery and self-loathing.

You fight what you are . . . Why? Why? Why?

He struggled to break out of haze into waking reality, into now, and discovered a presence nearby, too close for safety. Reflexively, he lashed out with both hands, grabbing hold of the potential threat. The physical contact released a cascade of feral hunger; he began to draw strength from the intruder without conscious intention.

A gasping, sobbing cough broke his focus and jarred him back to full awareness. He jerked back, shoving the human away with brutal haste, and snapped, “
Damn it
, what are you
thinking
?”

Eredion stayed loosely sprawled on the floor for a few labored breaths, then slowly climbed to his feet, face grey and strained. Sunlight pouring through the unshuttered windows caught out glimmers of silver in Eredion’s dark hair; Deiq’s breath caught hard.

“Your hair—”

“I’m trying to help,” Eredion said. “And the grey hair isn’t from you. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I could have killed you!” Deiq pushed himself upright against the headboard of the bed. Fear—and the flush of energy he’d taken from Eredion without meaning to—shivered through his entire body.

“Not likely,” Eredion said, settling into a chair. Color seeped back into his face; he drew a deep breath and let it out loudly. “You forget what I’ve already lived through. That was a tickle compared to what Ninnic’s child liked to do.”

Deiq shut his eyes and tilted his chin to his chest, fear draining away into nausea: vividly remembering the savage marks other ha’ra’hain had left on Eredion.

“I’m sorry,” he said, resting in the colorful darkness behind his eyelids.

“I’m a desert lord,” Eredion said, and sighed again.

“Did I snap a rib when I pushed you?”

“I don’t think so.” Eredion sucked in a breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “No. It’s just bruised. I’ll be fine . . . Don’t you realize yet, Deiq, that I was the
only
desert lord that stayed in reach after Rosin Weatherweaver took over the Bright Bay Northern Church tower? Ninnic’s child liked taking entire lives, but Rosin—and Ninnic, once Rosin got hold of him—liked watching people suffer. Over. And over. I was . . . perfect. I could even heal their victims sometimes.”

Deiq leaned his head back against the headboard, unable to repress a dry, choked sob.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this
, he thought.
How the hells did it come to this?

No ha’rethe ever rejoiced in torture the way Rosin Weatherweaver had; but the ha’ra’hain, one and all, had turned out dreadfully susceptible to the madness of domination and power.
And Idisio’s probably learning all about it now from his mother . . .
Just one more reason to chase after him before she destroyed his innocence; just one more reason to stay the hells away from her.

“It’s not your fault,” Eredion said after a while. “Done is done, and it’s over. I only came in to help. You were too afraid of hurting me earlier. I’m not so fragile these days.”

Deiq opened his eyes and regarded Eredion soberly; thinking about Meer’s last words, and how unworthy he’d proven of that priest’s sacrifice. And thinking, too, that there had been a different flavor to Eredion’s submission this time; not as much
duty
and more of . . . something else less nameable. It might even have been a tinge of compassion. Of understanding.

Not that he deserved either.

“Thank you,” Deiq said. “But please don’t do that again. You’ve been through enough.”

“That’s my decision to make, ha’inn,” Eredion said a bit sharply, and Deiq had to smile.

“And your help is my decision to accept,” he noted. “So I’m refusing, with thanks. You’ve done enough. I’m . . . refreshed enough to manage for a while now. Let be.”

Eredion nodded and stood, rubbing his bruised ribs gingerly. “Then I think you’re strong enough for the next problem.” His tone lost its soft edge, moving into crisp normalcy; Deiq found that a relief. “The king wants to see you.”

“About what?”

“What do you think?”

Deiq let out a deep sigh. “I’m trying not to, at the moment,” he muttered. “But I’m thinking this isn’t going to go well.”

“That’s why I’m not leaving you two alone for this talk.”

“Hhh.” Deiq exhaled hard and forced a grin. “All right. Help me up.”

“Oh, hells no,” Eredion said, shaking his head. “You stay right there, and do your best to look like you can’t get out of bed just yet. He’s coming here.”

Deiq felt his grin widen. “He’s that nervous?”

“Oh, hells yes.”

“
Good
.”

Oruen wasn’t a bad king, or a bad man, as humans went. But then, some humans, such as Eredion, tended to claim that Deiq “wasn’t all that bad, as ha’ra’hain go”. Intrinsic to that vast oversimplification was a large grey battlefield, ever ready to sprout the seeds of misunderstanding and unintentional insult into violence.

Deiq had long ago given up on the traditional courtesies he’d been taught to demand from humans; quite simply, he’d outlived the need. Most humans, thanks to fools like Lord Arit Sessin who
protected
their people from reality, didn’t even know what a ha’ra’ha was, let alone how to be courteous to one. He expected nothing in the way of manners from Oruen, and said as much to Eredion while they waited.

“He means well,” Eredion said. “He tries harder than Mezarak or Ninnic did, anyway.”

Deiq snorted. “That’s a handful of water in the middle of the ocean.”

Eredion shrugged and offered no argument to that.

Oruen arrived in less time than some kings would have taken, and with only two guards.

“Wait outside, please,” he murmured to his guards; they retreated to the outer room of the suite without protest. The king watched the bedroom door shut behind them, then removed his formal circlet and robes, setting them carefully on a chair near the door.

Deiq and Eredion watched in mutual bewilderment; stripped of the gold and gem-laced crown, without his embroidered and brocaded robes, Oruen stood before them in a simple grey and tan under-tunic and trousers, looking as ordinary as any commoner.

Taking a deep breath, the gangly man bowed, his head almost reaching his knees, then straightened and said, “
Ha’inn
. I am graced by your presence. The room is brightened by your honor—”

Deiq pushed himself a little further upright, intrigued.

“That’s a damn old greeting ritual you’re starting, Lord Oruen,” he interrupted. “Where’d you learn about that one?”

Eredion snorted as though resisting laughter and observed, “Well, you’ve spoiled it now, Deiq. Couldn’t you give him the grace of letting him finish it, at least?”

“No,” Deiq said. “The bloody thing goes on for an hour before you get to any substance. Sit down, if you please, Lord Oruen. I’ll take the ritual as read, shall I?”

Oruen smiled and settled into the chair he’d draped his clothes over, moving the thin circlet to his lap, where he toyed with it nervously.

“I’ll admit to some relief at that decision myself,” he said. “I wasn’t looking forward to the next hour.”

Deiq grinned to mask the sharpness of his gaze. Oruen’s effort was admirable, but that only meant more trouble, not less.

“What brings you to see me today, Lord Oruen?”

Oruen raised a thin eyebrow. “You’re injured,” he said. “And someone warned me against setting watchers for this room while you occupy it. So I decided to pay a courtesy visit myself, to see how you’re healing.”

Deiq shot a sideways glance at Eredion, who returned it with a lack of expression that answered the unspoken question.

“Someone was smart, telling you that,” Deiq said dryly. “As for the injury, I’m healing well.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Oruen said. “It’s historic enough that you’ve been injured, let alone recuperating within palace walls. I’d rather not add more world-shaking events to the current tab.”

“I try to avoid shaking the world whenever possible,” Deiq returned amiably. “It makes the ground a difficult place to stand.”

Oruen nodded and permitted himself a dry smile of his own. “I never did get the full story behind your presence at Alyea’s side. May I inquire on that matter, ha’inn?”

Deiq studied the king, aware of Eredion shifting a subtle step closer, and decided that he was too tired to play games.

“I’m escorting Lord Alyea,” he said. “I’m here to ensure her safety while she grows into her new life as a desert lord. And to make sure she doesn’t accidentally kill anyone while she’s learning.”

Oruen flinched; then his eyes narrowed, and his tone moved closer to challenging. “And yet here you are, injured, unable to protect or advise her at all. And she seems not to be harmed, or to have harmed anyone, in your absence.”

“I didn’t have much choice where they carried me when the tath-shinn attacked me,” Deiq said tartly. “But I’ll be in her suite by the end of the day, resuming my obligations, now that I can stand and walk.”

Oruen’s gaze flicked to Eredion, returned to Deiq. “You can stand and walk? Then why are you still in bed?”

Eredion coughed, shot Deiq a black glare, and said, “That’s my fault, Lord Oruen. I thought the discussion might go more smoothly if he stayed in a . . . vulnerable position relative to you. Given your history.”

The king’s stare turned dangerously hard. “A lie, Lord Eredion?”

“For the benefit of both of you, Lord Oruen. But he’s hardly dancing around even now. His mobility and stamina are sharply limited. A short walk yesterday laid him out all over again. He needs more time.”

Deiq shot Eredion a startled glance, suddenly understanding.
So the king would rather I get the hells out of his palace, is that it?
he asked.

Eredion lifted one shoulder in a shrug, not bothering to answer.

“Stay, then,” Oruen said, the words emerging as though they turned sour on the way across his tongue. “But stay in your own apartment, if you please. I see no need to harm Alyea’s reputation with your presence.”

Deiq let out a bitter bark of laughter. “I think we’re a bit past the point of
reputation
,” he returned. “Haven’t you ever heard the stories about new desert lords?”

Oruen jerked to his feet, almost snarling; Deiq rose at the same time, grinning like an asp-jacau. Both men took long steps forward; then Eredion moved between them, planting one hand firmly and unapologetically on the king’s chest.

“I think that’s enough of an audience for today, Lord Oruen,” the desert lord said loudly. “Ha’inn Deiq is obviously growing tired and needs to rest.”

Deiq could hear Oruen’s teeth creak as the man glared past Eredion at him.

“That’s
enough
, Lord Oruen,” Eredion repeated, his hand tensing into the slightest push.

Oruen whirled, grabbed up his robes and circlet, and stormed from the room without bothering to put them on first. Deiq made a point of sitting down before the king had left the room. Petty, yes; but damned satisfying.