9780981988238

by Leona Wisoker

  “There's nothing saying he's not,” Idisio shot back.

  “Sessii ta-karne, i shha!” Scratha spat, suddenly furious; the moment passed quickly, and he rubbed his temples as if to ease a headache. “Fine. I'll ask around. If you swear to keep your own mouth shut.”

  “I promise,” Idisio said readily. “What did all that mean, just now?”

  “If you ever learn the old language,” Scratha said, his expression still sour, “you're welcome to punch me for what I just called you. Now go away.” He tossed Idisio a gold round. “Take Riss out for a good meal, and buy yourselves some proper desert clothes. I don't have time to see to it now. If you run out of money, tell them to send me the bill. And go find Red; tell him to come see me.”

  “Yes, my lord, thank you, my lord,” Idisio said, and bolted before the man could change his mind.

  He went after Red first, reasoning that the search would be quicker without a girl tagging along. It didn't take long for Idisio to be glad of that decision. Several of the streets and taverns he passed through in his search made him nervous, and a female face would have caused a riot in at least one of them.

  He finally found the sailor, sitting alone in a dark and musty-smelling wine shop, staring at an almost-full glass of wine. Judging by the bartender's expression, the sailor had been sitting without drinking for some time.

  “Idisio,” Red said, looking up with a distracted frown. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” Idisio said. “My lord wants to see you.”

  “What for?”

  “I talked him into helping you look for your son,” Idisio said, and watched the dour expression lighten into incredulity.

  “Why would he do something like that? Why would you?” Red stood, leaning forward onto the table as if in need of the support. “You walked me there, like I asked; you don't owe me anything else.”

  Idisio shrugged. “Better hurry, before he changes his mind.”

  “Gods,” the man said, and threw a silver coin on the table. “Where do I find him?”

  “Silver Sands Inn,” Idisio said. “Wait, I'm headed back there too. . .” But the sailor had already slammed through the door and was almost running down the street. Idisio sighed, offered the sullen barkeep a shrug, and followed.

  Not in a hurry now, he found himself paying more attention to the people he passed, especially the younger ones. Ten to fifteen, Red had said; no older than Idisio, and with bright red hair. Something about that tugged at his memory, disturbing him. He'd known a boy with bright red hair once, in Bright Bay; could it have been . . . ? But that was ridiculous, of course. He put it out of his mind.

  Once or twice his step slowed too much, and he found himself the target of coarse invitation by nearby whores, male and female alike. He'd never liked those offers, and with old memories churning fresh in his mind, liked them even less. He shook his head each time and hurried past without speaking.

  He made it back to the inn without seeing a single naturally redtopped head, male, female, adult, or child. There were even more people in this town with dyed hair than there had been in Bright Bay, but the colors here tended towards blue and yellow and even white, all in strips, usually set in dozens of long, tight braids. An astonishing number of people, young and old, were shaven completely bald. Many wore thin, hoodlike head coverings that wrapped around the face, leaving only the eyes visible.

  As Idisio entered the inn, he belatedly thought about what he'd just done: challenged a desert lord and offered himself as payment for whatever debt was incurred. Jumped in on the side of a near stranger, a randy northerner as Scratha had named him.

  He'd lost his mind. What had he been thinking?

  Traveling away from the city had softened his survival wits. He'd had it too easy, too safe, for too long; he'd jumped straight into madness without even looking first.

  With barely a glance at Idisio, the innkeeper told him the room numbers, sounding thoroughly distracted. Idisio offered thanks with little more coherence. His troubled thoughts carried him blindly to the door of the room he would be sharing with Scratha. He could hear voices inside, and decided Red and Scratha were best left alone for the moment. Riss had the next room over; he moved to it and knocked softly on the door.

  After a moment, he rapped harder, and that brought an indistinct mutter from inside. It sounded like an invitation, and Idisio, mind still fixed on the enormity of what he'd just done, pushed through the door and stepped inside.

  More bare skin than Seshya had ever shown him presented itself.

  “Ohdeargods,” he said, and slammed back out of the room, eyes shut tight. Weak-kneed, he leaned against the opposite wall and tried to think of a way to pretend he hadn't just walked in on Riss with no clothes on.

  He hadn't managed anything beyond slowing his racing heart by the time the door opened. Riss stared at him, wearing a light robe and looking bemused herself.

  After a moment, she said, “Your hearing's not much good, is it? I said 'wait a minute.'”

  Idisio shook his head dumbly, looking anywhere but at her.

  “Gods, you're an idiot,” Riss said after a moment, sounding impatient. “Come on in; don't stand there in the hallway. You look like you're about to faint.”

  “No,” Idisio said, aware that his voice was emerging at a rather higher octave than usual. “That's all right, I just. . . .”

  “Oh, for the love of the gods,” Riss said. She grabbed his arm, yanked him into the room and closed the door behind him. “Haven't you ever seen a girl without clothes on before? It's hot here! I was trying to cool off. Sit down.”

  He shook his head, still at a complete loss for words, and sank into the chair she pointed to.

  “Was there something important, or did you just barge into my room for fun?” Riss said waspishly.

  “Ah,” he said, intensely grateful for a question he did have a good answer to. “Lord Scratha wants me to take you out for a meal and to buy some clothes. Proper desert clothes, he said.” He took a chance and opened his eyes again.

  “Good,” Riss said. “Everything I have makes me sweat. Did you find the sailor's boy?”

  “No,” he said, staring determinedly at the floor. “He's gone. . . .”

  He felt a sudden dizziness, and a hot, dry wind whispered against his cheeks and forehead. The taste of sand rolled against his tongue. A memory rose, of the red-haired boy he'd known and his odd mannerisms; he had been southern. He might have been Red's son, after all. Wouldn't that be funny . . . but the thought held no real humor against the continuing overlay of wind whispering in his mind.

  The moment passed. Riss knelt beside him, her face white, gripping his arm hard. “I thought you were about to faint. What happened?”

  “Nothing.” He blinked, trying to focus. “I just . . . I just need to go eat something. I haven't eaten today. I think. Let's get going.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then cautiously released his arm as if afraid he would fall over. He stood, correcting a slight wobble before she could react to it.

  “Wait outside, then, so I can dress,” she said, looking as if she held back much sharper words. Idisio left the room and leaned against the opposite wall again. Like before, his knees felt treacherously unready to support him, but this time it wasn't embarrassment and shock; it was fear.

  It happened again while they were walking back to the inn.

  Full, content, and relaxed, he began telling Riss about the visit with Filhane and about Scratha agreeing to help. He glossed over how he'd gained his lord's support, and although Riss gave him a hard look reminiscent of the one Azni had used weeks ago, she left it alone.

  “So what now?” Riss said. “Is this sailor going to be traveling with us?”

  “I don't know,” Idisio said, startled. “I hadn't thought of that. I figured they'd ask some questions locally; the boy can't be far from here, can he?”

  “If he's been taken into a desert lord's family, he could be anywhe
re,” Riss pointed out.

  “I don't think. . . .” Idisio started, and his vision blurred again.

  He felt a sense of being elsewhere and other than himself. Stone walls rose around him and silence, blessed silence, and a warmth began in his chest; the faintest glimmer of hope that it was over, that he had found a safe place at last, and an anger. . . .

  He came back to himself, on his knees, his cheek stinging as if Riss had slapped him. His throat felt raw, and the packages he'd been carrying were scattered over the ground as if he'd thrown his arms out wide and heedless.

  “You screamed,” Riss said, her face white. Her voice trembled as she went on, “I think you made one man piss himself. I almost did. Gods, what's going on with you?”

  “I don't know,” he said. People were beginning to gather around, staring. He climbed to his feet, brushed off his knees, and started picking up the dropped bundles.

  “Let's get back to the inn,” Riss said. “Quickly.”

  “You have to tell Lord Scratha,” she said once they were back in the inn. They'd gone to Riss's room by unspoken agreement; the packages were piled in a corner.

  “No,” he said immediately, hunching into himself. Afterimages still danced through his mind at odd moments; a phantom glimpse of red hair, a tickling urge to scream and never stop.

  “You have to,” Riss insisted. “He'll know what to do. What are you afraid of?”

  “I'm not afraid,” he said, lying altogether; the lift of her eyebrows called him on it. Before they could argue further, a knock sounded and Scratha stepped in without waiting for invitation.

  “I see where you learned your manners,” Riss said a bit sourly.

  Scratha cast her a puzzled look, then shrugged it aside without asking. “It's getting late. We have to get up early in the morning. If you could manage without Idisio's company, we all need to get some sleep.”

  “Lord,” Riss said, ignoring Idisio's frantic motion to stop her, “Idisio needs to talk to you.”

  “No,” Idisio said, ducking his face away from the dark stare turning his way. “No, I'm all right.”

  “He's had fits twice in the last four hours,” Riss said over his protest. “He's afraid to tell you for some reason.”

  “Thank you, Riss,” Scratha said, voice completely calm. “Idisio, come.”

  Idisio shot Riss a poisonous glare as he left the room; she shrugged and made a shooing motion with her hands.

  “Fits,” Scratha said quietly a few moments later, closing the door behind them. He moved to the edge of the low bed and sat down. “Tell me.”

  Seeing no point in protest, Idisio gave as much detail as he could remember of each incident. When he finished talking, Scratha shut his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, then sighed and dropped his hand.

  “Have you been practicing the aqeyva meditations?” he asked.

  “Every day,” Idisio said. “Hours a day.”

  “Hours,” Scratha repeated, and shook his head. His dark eyes scrunched more tightly closed, then opened again. “I didn't think you'd practice that much on your own. I should have paid more attention.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” Idisio said, bewildered. “I thought I was getting really good at it. Is that wrong?”

  Scratha let out a half-snort, half-laugh. “Wrong? No. But you should have had more guidance. I should have been watching you. I let my own concerns distract me. You've been in trance for hours a day?” He sounded as if he hoped the answer might change to “No, I lied.”

  “It passed the time,” Idisio said, trying to sound indifferent. He fought an urge to cower; the very air seemed to have darkened with the desert lord's mood.

  “Do you have any idea how rare that is?” Scratha said. “I've been practicing aqeyva most of my life and can't hold a full trance more than two hours.”

  “It's just . . . paying attention to yourself,” Idisio said, fumbling for words. “It's not that hard. I don't understand, my lord. It's no different than seeing what's really in front of you, like when you had me look at that mug; I just never thought to turn it to myself before. And it would have been dangerous, losing track of everything around me like that. But it's not that hard.”

  Scratha shook his head again, his expression bemused. “You make it sound so simple,” he said. “Only aqeyva masters can do what you've done. And these visions, and not being affected by Yuer's drugs . . .You never had anything like this before you started practicing?”

  “No,” Idisio said after a moment's thought. “I've always relied on hunches, but nothing, ever, as . . . as solid as these. They're almost visions.”

  “That's exactly what they are,” Scratha said. He rubbed at his eyes. “I think you have Ghost Lake blood, Idisio. You have too much northern in your face for anything else.”

  “What's . . . ?” Idisio stopped, remembering Red's song. “That's the place up by Arason? Those stories are real?”

  “Oh, yes. There was more truth than myth to the tales that sent witchhunters to Arason. How you came to Bright Bay I don't understand, and we'll probably never know, but you're ha'ra'ha, without a doubt.”

  Idisio shut his eyes. He thought he might scream. “What's a ha'ra'ha?”

  After a brief silence, Scratha said, “It's . . . well, we'll talk about it more, later. I need time to think how to explain it. I never thought I'd have to . . . well. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

  Idisio accepted that decision with deep relief; but after a time of staring up through the darkness, wide-eyed and wakeful, began to regret letting it pass. At last he said, tentatively, “Lord Scratha?”

  The desert lord sighed. “I can't sleep either,” he admitted. “All right. I don't suppose you've learned any real history, so I'll have to start a ways back for you to make sense of the answer. That's why I've needed to think, to find the shortest way to explain.” He blew out a gusty breath and shifted on the low bed. “You're not fully human, Idisio.”

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  After dark, the ishell felt very different from the spacious, welcoming place Alyea had seen earlier in the day. Globes of oil similar to those in the passageways had been set on the floor near the walls at measured intervals, but gave off such dim light that most of the room lay in shadow.

  Women in white robes, with hoods drawn forward to hide their faces, occupied every bench: sitting cross-legged and facing each other as Alyea and the ishrait had done earlier in the day. The pool looked like a black pit now, and not at all welcoming. Alyea couldn't tell where the stone ended and the water began. She stood in the doorway to the ishell, uncertain and unreasonably terrified, and waited for someone to tell her what to do.

  A hand touched her shoulder from behind. Alyea stopped a frightened squeak just before it emerged from her mouth and turned to meet the dark gaze of the ishrait. In the eerie light of the room, the woman's face seemed a thing of stark and cold angles. The power she had resonated earlier in the day had shifted into something much broader and deeper, a thing of deep roots and old knowledge.

  “Disrobe,” the ishrait commanded. Alyea slipped out of the light robe; the woman reached out and took it from her.

  “Stand at the edge of the pool.”

  Alyea felt her way across the floor, wary of stubbing her toes. Past the benches, she moved even more cautiously, testing for the edge of the water with each step. At last a slight slickness and a dip in the floor warned her she'd come close; she stopped, turning to face the ishrait.

  “There is a mat a step to your left,” the ishrait said. “Sit down, facing me.”

  Alyea obeyed. The mat felt like a smoothly-woven blanket folded on itself to create thickness. She drew her legs up and tried to tuck her feet under herself; the room had become surprisingly cold.

  “The sisters of Ishrai form a community in which the opinions of all are valued,” the ishrait said. “Therefore, the first part of the test is a series of questions, one from each sister of Ishrai gathered here
. You must answer to their complete satisfaction to continue. You may take as long as you like to think about the questions, but you must answer fully and honestly. Do you accept these terms?”

  Alyea swallowed. “Yes.”

  The ishrait's voice became deeper and more formal. “Sisters, before us is a supplicant for the blood trial of Ishrai. I have granted her petition. Taishell te s'a-naila; the blood trial begins. She is open to you now. Ask her what you wish.”

  A voice came from somewhere in front of her. “Supplicant, you have no name, no titles, no status in this place of Ishrai. Does that change your purpose?”

  Alyea considered the question carefully. If she truly had no name, if all her titles and privileges were stripped from her, would that stop her? Would she be free to abandon Gria and Sela, and stop worrying about them and the job laid upon her by the king?