“No,” she said at last. “I will continue regardless.”
Another voice echoed through the chamber. “Supplicant, do you act for yourself or for others?”
Alyea began to answer, then stopped, frowning into the darkness around her. She had to pass the blood trials because she'd been charged with holding Scratha Fortress by the king; and she wanted to do that not for his sake, but for her own. He'd handed her a powerful position: hadn't her first thought been that she would outrank Pieas? She'd agreed to the position for her own purposes. Still, she felt genuine concern and thought for others had been involved in her decisions. She considered another moment, and finally said, “Both.”
“Do you always think of others in your decisions?”
“No,” she said. She'd expected something similar, and had an answer ready. “I have been selfish much of my life. I see that, and regret it, and wish to change that behavior.”
“Define selfish.”
Alyea bit her lip. “It's thinking first of yourself, to the harm of others,” she said, trying to keep from sounding uncertain.
“Who have you harmed, and how?”
She stared from darkness into the steady ring of light at the edges of the room, and didn't know what to say. The silence seemed to stretch forever. “I should have listened to my elders,” she said, unable to come up with anything more coherent.
The question was repeated in an eerie flat tone that echoed through the room. “Who have you harmed, and how?”
. . .how . . . how . . . hhhhwwww . . . ohh. . . .
The whispering echoes faded away to silence.
Alyea shut her eyes, feeling suddenly ill. One chance gone; only two more left, if this went by the rules the ishrait had explained earlier. A memory rose in her mind: Ethu's fixed grimace as the whips descended again and again.
“I caused the death of a good man,” she whispered. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “By not being willing to stand up for my truth, I allowed a man with more courage than I to die in my place.”
“Was his death truly your fault?”
She drew breath to insist it had been, but the words twisted in her mouth.
“No,” she heard herself say. Her voice came out hard and rough from deep in her throat. “No. It was them, the priests, not me. I wish I could kill them all!”
Alyea hadn't cried back then, hadn't cried during her own punishment, or afterwards; under constant watch, she hadn't dared display weakness. By the time that danger passed, grief had been pushed into a steely anger against the priests. But now that long-standing shield dissolved; tears came, unleashed with the force of a long-delayed wave. She bent over, locking her elbows around her knees, and found herself actually howling with anger and pain.
As if a ghost were in the room, she thought she heard Ethu's voice whispering no tears, but she couldn't seem to stop.
Her sobs were the only sound for a long time. When her breath slowed to occasional hitches, she sat back up, drawing an arm across her face. She looked around at the silent women and thought, Well, I've failed this one for sure.
Another voice spoke, from her right this time. “What teaching do you follow?”
Still shaken by her emotional outburst, Alyea found words hard to assemble. “I . . . I don't have one,” she said. “I was taught to follow the northern s'iopes, but that was just to keep me alive.”
“Is your learning of our ways aimed only at keeping you alive?”
Alyea bit her lip. An edge to that question warned her she'd moved onto dangerous ground.
“There are people depending on me,” she said carefully. “I won't survive the trials if I don't learn your lessons, and I can't help anyone if I'm dead.” Prompted by a mad impulse, she added dryly: “Personally, as well, I'd rather stay alive.”
She saw no visible reaction to her attempt at humor. Even a flicker of a smile would have been tremendously reassuring; the constant, emotionless drone of the questions and the surrounding silence raised a cold sweat on the back of her neck.
“You are putting your own life at risk for the sake of another's orders. If you pass all the trials and become a desert lord, what then?”
Alyea started to say: I'll do the task he sent me here to do. She held the words, sensing a larger question. For the first time, she thought about the possibility of succeeding, of holding Scratha Fortress as an actual desert lord. What would she do?
Return to Bright Bay? Her new status would throw her entire family into disarray. No Peysimun had ever held rank as high as desert lord. They wouldn't know what to do with her. They'd be terrified.
Desert lords never stayed in Bright Bay for long. They wandered through and left again, ignoring the people scurrying out of their way. Sometimes they came to court gatherings; sometimes they just showed up for no apparent reason and left again a few days later. She wouldn't be welcome for very long; it would make people too nervous.
Dozens of small political alliances throughout the court would be disrupted by the fact that a minor family had abruptly acquired powerful connections. And what would Oruen do with her, a potentially dangerous new force in his court? He couldn't allow her to stay in Bright Bay unless she labored under a tight leash of his own making; and she knew she wouldn't stand for that. He likely knew that too, which led to unpleasant suspicions she didn't want to think about.
Stay in the desert? Where? Once Scratha returned and took possession of his fortress again, she'd have nowhere to go. It seemed doubtful that proud lord would allow her to stay, title or no title. In fact, Scratha would likely be furious at the move to make her a desert lord and place her in charge of Scratha Fortress. He might even call her out, to end in blood the possibility of another claimant for his place.
No matter which way she looked, death seemed to be waiting, and betrayal by everyone she'd ever trusted. She'd been an idiot to agree to Oruen's request. Why had he put her in this position? What did he want from her? She shut her eyes, nauseated.
“Gods only know,” she said, and meant it; she had no better answer to give the waiting silence. “I'll deal with that day when it comes.”
“Is this man who sent you here worth dying for?”
Alyea thought about when she'd first met Oruen. He'd been tall and gangly, thin and awkward, nothing to look twice at physically. He'd skirted the fringes of court life, only attending when it would have been suicidal to be seen absent.
He'd haunted the beaches of Bright Bay, stopping to pick up shells like any scruffy beachcomber, examining them carefully and setting them back down. Sometimes he threw them out into the ocean, hard, as far as they would go, or skipped flat rocks against the waves.
She'd watched him from hiding, drawn by some bitter intensity in his actions, and finally one day openly positioned herself where she knew he'd pass by on his daily ramblings. She'd been twelve at the time, he almost twice that. He'd walked by with barely a nod to her; she'd scrambled to her feet and taken up a place by his side.
He hadn't objected, hadn't said anything, and they had walked in silence for over an hour. She'd met him again the next day, and the next, and slowly they'd started to talk, far away and safe from the s'iopes and the horror of daily life.
She'd been sixteen when Oruen took her to bed, the one and only time. She always said seduced afterwards, but the reality was much more desperate, a day of unrivaled horror leading to a mutual need for comfort, which unfolded into the inevitable.
He'd never referred to it afterward, never approached her again; and after a few fumbling attempts of her own had been rebuffed kindly but unmistakably, she'd let the friendship resume with some distance to it. When Pieas cornered her one night, she hadn't told anyone. She'd pushed aside Oruen's questions about the bruises. She'd been afraid to bridge that distance, afraid of collapsing into his arms only for him to gently, quietly push her back with the same emotionless words he'd used before.
And now he'd gained the throne, and his return for all her help and her one-time warm
ing of his bed had been a permanent apartment in the palace and the raising of her family back into favored status. She wasn't his concubine, nor one of his advisors. He called her a friend and allowed her to quietly visit him any time she felt the need to talk, and he still claimed to respect her judgment and observations. But she'd gained nothing significant for the risks she'd taken on his behalf. Not until he chose her, out of a court of highly qualified diplomats, to step into what she now saw as the most politically dangerous situation he'd faced in the six months he had been on the throne.
Why her? The question kept coming back. Why pick an inexperienced, relatively ignorant girl, and send her with an advisor reluctant to give out crucial information? Had he intended for her to fail? If so, if not . . . was Oruen worth dying for?
She breathed in through her nose, let the air out in a hard sigh. “Once upon a time, I would have said yes without question. He's a good man. Now . . . I don't know.”
“Is your purpose worth dying for?”
Opening her mouth to say yes, she found herself shocked at the words that came out instead: “Nothing is worth dying for. You can't help anyone or anything if you're dead.”
Wincing, Alyea shut her eyes, waiting. What she had said went against everything she had ever been taught, ever seen lived, ever believed before. But it felt like truth: a raw, harsh truth filled with anger at endless violence and pointless sacrifice. Too many men had marched to the palace to beg, to plead, to threaten and cajole for the return of their wives and families; their reward had been a chance to entertain Ninnic before their own deaths. Too many women had thrown themselves in front of their children, trying to protect them, only to be killed and the children taken anyway.
Honorable self-sacrifice be damned to the s'iopes' hells; it never achieved anything.
The ishrait finally spoke. “Stand.”
Alyea rose slowly, massaging cramps out of her legs; the cold of the stone seemed to have seeped through the blanket and into her joints. The women on the benches were turning, facing her now, their faces still shadowed beneath their deep hoods.
“The test of Comos is the test of the ego,” the ishrait said, her rich voice rolling through the room. “It asks you to set aside your own fear, your own needs, for the sake of those you protect. The test of Ishrai is the test of life. It asks you to weigh the value of living. A desert lord's life is a sacred trust and must be treated with the greatest respect. A desert lord's death weakens the entire world. The desert is harsh, and life is not fair; a reckless leader would quickly be killed and leave his people unprotected. That is why a full desert lord must have the approval of Ishrai.”
Alyea swallowed, daring to hope that she'd pulled it off after all.
“You have passed this part of the test of Ishrai,” the woman said. “Taishell te s'a-lalien; sisters, the supplicant is closed to you now. You may go.”
The women stood in a ragged wave, bowed deeply in Alyea's direction, and filed silently out of the room. The clicking of the bead curtain swaying back into place went on for quite some time as the ishrait moved around the room, extinguishing oil lamps until only one remained lit. She picked it up and came to stand in front of Alyea. In the tiny island of light surrounding them, the woman's face seemed drawn and worried.
“Now comes the hard part, Alyea,” she said. “Sit back down, please.”
The tall woman sat down on the floor in front of Alyea, seeming not to mind the cold stone; set the oil lamp between them and shut her eyes. She looked as if she were gathering strength for a supremely difficult task.
“Women do not usually become desert lords,” the ishrait said. “Let me assure you it has nothing to do with gender bias. There's a very harsh reality involved. I know that Juric told you he believed you could do this; I wish I could agree. If you had the full year to study with us, I believe you might pass, but this. . . .”
She blew out air through her nose in a hard sigh of her own, seeming frustrated, and directed another worried glance at the dark pool.
“Alyea, I'll be honest. I hoped you would fail the questioning. That would have been safer for all of us.”
Alyea felt the chill of the stone reaching up her spine.
“I'm committed now,” she said, hearing a brittle edge in her own voice. “Stop trying to scare me out of it.”
The ishrait smiled, a brief flash of pale teeth in a shadow-lined face. “All right. Let me tell you a story, then. Be silent, and listen.” She leaned forward, extinguished the last lamp, and began to speak, a disembodied voice in complete darkness:
In the beginning days of the world, there was born light, and there was born dark. There was dry, and there was wet. There was warm, and there was cold. Then there came life, with death close behind. And life took many forms, but death could take only one.
One form of life developed which could think, and knew itself, and considered future and past and present as separate concepts. And that life grew, and claimed dominion over all creatures, and built a great city, and another, and another.
That life was not human.
Alyea opened her eyes and stared into the darkness, wishing she could see the ishrait's face.
Their cities did not satisfy them. They fought, and argued over small things, and lost their way, and became deeply divided, and at last parted ways. Some stayed above ground, others fled on the wind, and others dug deep to find the secrets of the world, hiding underground as they sought for knowledge. After a long time, the seekers desired to reconcile with their estranged brethren, and emerged from the deep and the still places of the world.
But the cities were gone. All traces of the ones they had left behind were gone, without a trace. No ruins; no signs of battle; nothing. Their people were simply gone, as if they had never been.
Alyea made herself swallow in a dry throat. Her eyes were starting to hurt; she realized she'd been straining them wide, staring into the darkness as if she could force herself to see the ishrait's face. She shut her eyes and rubbed her eyelids lightly with her fingertips.
The remaining seekers were few and mostly old by that time. They had not given much thought to children, while they sought their knowledge; they had been secure in their certainty that more of their kind existed to carry on the line. Now that security faltered, and they found themselves alone.
But they discovered that while they studied the deep and the still places of the world, another life had moved to fill the quiet place left by their lost brethren. This life thought, and knew itself, and considered past and present and future to be separate concepts.
This life was human.
Alyea swallowed again, blinking. She had a dozen questions by now, but knew better than to speak. The air felt dry and cold in her throat, and her skin chill-prickled.
This is the teaching of Ishrai. This is the secret lore we hold. Callen of Ishrai and the desert lords alone know this tale. You will never repeat it.
Alyea found herself nodding obediently.
The humans and the people of the world met, the ishrait said, and Alyea wondered if she were speaking at all. The breathing in front of her seemed steady and undisturbed by words. She put the thought aside as irrelevant to the moment and focused on listening.
The humans and the people of the world agreed to live together, for mutual benefit, for mutual survival. The humans gave the people of the world a name they could pronounce: ha'reye for many, ha'rethe for one. And that suited the people of the world well enough.
And they discovered that with the right circumstances, they could have children together.
Alyea opened her mouth, caught herself just in time; put a hand over her mouth to make sure she stayed silent.
A pact was made between humans and the ha'reye, for mutual benefit, for mutual survival. The people of the world promised to use the secrets they had learned to make sure the humans had water that did not drown the land, winds that did not blow everything away, and a sun that did not scorch the land. The humans. . . .
<
br /> Alyea listened to the silence for a while before realizing the ishrait wanted her to complete the last sentence.
“The humans provided them with children,” she said softly.
The humans gave of themselves, the ishrait agreed. The humans gave, once every year, one of their finest young men or women. Those chosen to serve stayed with the ha'reye for one year, and gave the people of the world a single child of mixed blood, called a ha'ra'ha, and then returned to their families unharmed. Unhurt, but different; and they never spoke of what had happened during that year.
Over time, this caused fear and doubt. The ones who served were affected in different ways, and sometimes frightened their communities. After a time, some places rebelled, and refused to serve when chosen, and said they would not be bound to the people of the world. They broke away, heedless of disgrace or duty. But others remained true, and wanted to study more closely with the ha'reye, and learn their secrets.
9780981988238 Page 29