Secrets of the Sands

by Leona Wisoker

  “The Split,” Alyea said involuntarily, then clamped her hand back over her mouth and bit her lower lip.

  The Split, the ishrait agreed evenly. Some humans went south, to the deep jungles, to study with the ha'reye. The remaining humans broke their agreement with the people of the world, and held back their young. And the ha'reye waited a hundred years for the humans to change their ways and understand their error. But humans, not understanding, thought they had won, and moved on, and forgot.

  The ha'reye, seeing that humans had no intention of returning to their pact, came out of their deep and still places, and took the hundred young that they were due for the past hundred years. And then they left that area. The water sank deep into the ground, and the wind moved the earth from place to place to place, and the sun scorched the land. Great farms became desert, and lovely places became barren. And the humans searched for a cause, and found none; and a few among them who studied the old ways called for the ha'reye to forgive them, and found silence.

  Ha'reye do not forget as quickly as a human does, and they do not forgive as easily as a human will.

  Alyea felt herself nodding in time to the steady beat of the words, almost swaying in place, and shook herself sharply back to alertness.

  Humans sought their kin in the jungles to the south, and found the way closed. They tried to travel the seas, to find a new land where they might survive, and found the way closed. They tried to move into the northlands, and found the way closed. And people began to die from too much sun, and too much wind, and too little water.

  And then a strange thing happened.

  A single human, a young man who had studied the old lore and listened to the old stories all his life, walked into the deepest places of the desert, where the children had once been given, and offered himself.

  He sat in the hot sun and let it scorch him. He sat in the rains and let them soak him. He sat while the wind blew fierce and wild around him, and did not move. And he called out over and over and over for the ha'reye to hear him, to take him as an offering under the old ways, to forgive humans for breaking the pact.

  The ha'reye heard and were amazed. They answered, and lifted him from the hot sands, and eased his burned flesh, and accepted him as an offering under the old ways. But they did not forgive all humans for breaking the pact, and they did not restore the southlands to their former glory.

  After the allotted year of service was up, they released him to spread the word that if humans would return to the pact for as many years as they had left it broken, the east and the west and the north would be opened, but the southern jungles would stay closed forever, and should now be known as the Forbidden Jungles. Many people laughed at him, and said the desert had driven him mad; but some listened, and followed him, and kept the pact. And the pact was honored for a hundred and fifty years, and the east and the west and the north opened, but the Forbidden Jungles stayed closed. Those who had not believed went to the east and to the west and to the north, but those who believed stayed behind, and those who agreed to serve came to be called lords of the desert. They were avoided and feared more than they were respected, but kept the pact nonetheless. And those lords had families, and they chose to live in the deep places of the desert, and choose from their families who would keep the pact with the ha'reye.

  It soon became clear the choices were not blind enough; even a desert lord can make mistakes when it involves the intelligence or suitability of his own offspring. So the followers of the wind-lord Comos, the water-maiden Ishrai, and the sun-lord Datda were given the responsibility of testing those who wished to honor the pact.

  Over the years and through the miles, humans have once again forgotten, but never the desert lords. On the faith of the desert lords rests the survival not only of the southlands, but the world; and they never, ever forget that.

  Silence filled the darkness. Sensing that the ishrait had finished her story, Alyea lifted a trembling hand to her face and discovered the dampness of tears.

  “Good gods,” she said at last, shakily. “It's a long story,” the ishrait said quietly, her voice echoing in the empty room, “but you need to understand it. Any questions?”

  The words came out without conscious direction: “Has the king gone through the blood trials?”

  “Once, that was a requirement,” the ishrait said. “It fell aside with the years and the fading of memory into myth, and the chaos of recent years hasn't helped. No, the desert lords may call him 'lord' now, but it's an empty title. Oruen seems better than the recent line, but he'll never be allowed to take the trials. He knows just enough to understand that, and to have a small idea of what that means.”

  “And so he sent me,” Alyea said, pieces beginning to fit together at last. “To become his tame desert lord.”

  “A desert lord serves no man,” the ishrait said. “There is no such thing as a tame desert lord. Oruen's understanding is limited, and he makes a grave error with this.”

  “I'm beginning to see that,” Alyea agreed ruefully. “Why have I been allowed to come this far?”

  “Because you have the backing of a thass.”

  She almost said, who? But names weren't used here. “Why is this thass so important?”

  “Think of all you have heard, Alyea,” the woman said. “There is only one thing we would bow to in this situation. What is it?”

  In the quiet, Alyea's pulse seemed to thud along her temples. “The ha'reye?”

  “Or the ha'ra'hain, their mixed-blood descendants. Some few, very few, choose to make their way in the world of the humans, rather than stay in the deep places with the people of the world. Your thass is a ha'ra'ha who has chosen to stay with the humans. He is a very rare and important man among us, Alyea; and he favors you.”

  The room seemed warmer now, the stone under the blanket less chill; Alyea drew a deep breath and found herself breathing moist air again. She froze, not sure when the change had occurred, and unreasonably terrified by it.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, unable to keep her voice steady. “That he favors me? What am I supposed to do about it?”

  A heavy sigh came from the darkness in front of her.

  “There is a price for everything,” the ishrait said. “You cannot avoid the duty of a desert lord if you want your title to have any weight. You must give a child, and you must spend time learning your new way. But this rather peculiar situation demands your presence in the world much sooner than a year. This ha'ra'ha has proposed and been granted a remarkable exception to the one-year rule. After all the blood trials are complete, assuming you survive them all, he has offered to serve as your teacher. He will be as your lord and master until he is satisfied that you are ready to stand on your own.”

  The mist seemed to be condensing onto Alyea's bare skin. Not an unpleasant sensation, but still an eerie one; she resisted the urge to wipe the dampness away.

  How could she hold a desert fortress and be involved in delicate political arrangements while under orders from some stranger? Impossible. Alyea shut her eyes and tried to swallow again. This wasn't what she had expected.

  “What if I choose to spend the full year with . . . with the people of the world, the ha'reye, instead?” she asked.

  “It's too late for that,” the woman said, sounding sad. “The agreement is made and the questions are ended. My part in this is done. Taishell, ha'reye; she is open to you now. Gods hold you, child. Goodbye.”

  “Wait—”

  As she spoke, she realized that the dampness on her skin wasn't condensation, but a thick layer of some unknown fluid. With a wild eddy of warm air, a surge of the same liquid flowed up her back. It slid around to the front of her body, surrounding her so quickly she barely had time to gasp in reaction before she felt herself being lifted, rolled, and pulled in one long smooth movement beneath the surface of the pool.

  * * *

  Chapter Seventeen

  They left town as the sky began to grey; not on horses, as Idisio had
assumed, but walking, with a pack mule trudging beside them. The wide path up the slope he'd seen from the ship turned out to be gigantic steps, cut wide enough for two laden mules to pass each other comfortably. While the steps were shallow, the slope tended to be steep; within a short time his calves ached. He ignored it, brooding over what Scratha had told him the night before.

  The desert lord had told a long story in the cadences of a bard; Idisio had been carried away by that smooth recital. The meeting of ha'reye and human, the Agreement reached after much negotiation, the resulting children; it all whirled together in his head. He'd had little sleep and felt thoroughly gritty-eyed as he trudged up the steps, leading the mule.

  Early morning quiet didn't help his drowsiness. Their mule clopped steadily up, and others clopped placidly down. Nobody seemed in a hurry to get to the top or the bottom, and nobody rode. The steady rhythm sounded almost like a lullaby. Idisio blinked hard against the urge to fall asleep on his feet; no rail protected travelers against the increasingly long drop to the jagged ground below.

  Every so often, a wider space in the trail allowed people to move out of the way of those behind, and take a rest or a meal or a piss; Idisio saw all three in a short time. His thoughts had him so distracted he didn't even blink at the last, didn't find it at all odd, just gave it a blank incurious glance and kept trudging.

  As the sun warmed the air, Riss began to chatter: asking Scratha questions, laughing, being foolish. Realizing that his lord was answering patiently and even gently, Idisio shook out of his brooding to listen.

  “Three,” Scratha said. “Three gods, three trials, three marks. I bear all three. Full lords don't show them casually; they're sacred. Even telling you how many marks, how many trials, isn't something most would do.”

  “We're lucky,” Riss said, and it didn't sound at all sardonic. Scratha made a neutral noise and went on: “There's a . . . a ranking system, the thio, in the desert. Someone with Yuer's background and birth . . . I can understand his bitterness. He always wanted to be a desert lord, but even the Aerthraim wouldn't stretch that far, and they'll accept people into their family that no other desert family would touch.”

  “Why did Yuer leave the southlands?” Riss said. “He was essentially banished,” the noble said. “He'd given certain young ladies of station some . . . difficulty.”

  “Rape?” Riss said. Her voice trembled.

  “No,” Scratha said. “That would have gotten him a much more severe punishment. No, Yuer had a tendency to get drunk and say excessively rude things to nobles, especially women. He became such a disgrace that his case came before a Conclave. Everyone agreed that sending him to the northlands would be best; there would be less temptation for his outbursts. He seems to have gained some self-control, at least. Control enough to undercut a two-hundred-year-old agreement between desert and kingdom,” he added. “I still want to know how that happened.”

  They walked in silence for a while.

  “Where's Red?” Idisio said suddenly.

  Riss laughed. “You don't listen so well, do you? We've already been over that.”

  “I was thinking about something else,” Idisio said.

  “I told the sailor where to look and who to speak to,” Scratha said, cutting Riss short as she began to say something. “I gave him the words to use and a letter giving him my support. What he finds or doesn't find is up to him now. That's as far as I could go, Idisio. He's no longer our concern.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” he said, and meant it wholeheartedly.

  Scratha nodded without replying.

  “Oh, don't be mean,” Riss said a few moments later and grinned at Idisio. “Your lord's not telling you that he asked the sailor to send word if he found his answers.”

  Idisio shot a startled glance at Scratha; the man smiled, gaze still straight ahead.

  “True,” he said. “I'll admit I'd like to know, myself. I feel that there's something important about the boy, and I've always gone with my hunches.” He slanted a quick look at Idisio.

  “So have I,” Idisio said, and felt a new energy come into his step.

  The journey to the top of the Wall took two full days of climbing, with no inn along the way. Halfway up they came to a plateau where exhausted travelers could collapse; aching all over, Idisio promptly did so, heedless of being stepped on or over by man or beast.

  At the end of the second day of climbing, they crested the final turn of stair to level ground. The ground wasn't the pure sand Idisio had expected, but a hard, cracked mixture of pebbly dirt strewn across an uneven surface. A long building, flung wide and low across the ground and more window than wall, sat on a rare platform of solid rock. Out front stood a brightly painted sign, taller than Idisio and wider than he could stretch his arms, marked with a simple line drawing of a man climbing steep stairs. The awkward lettering read

  TOP OF THHE WAL IN ANN TAVARNN

  In the distance, a rough spire of wind-scoured rock hunched against the gathering dark. Idisio stopped, staring at it; something seemed both menacing and familiar about the formation. Before he could place what bothered him about the distant rock, Scratha prodded his shoulder and Riss his back, and he stumbled on with them, tangling up his feet momentarily. The challenge of keeping his balance without catapulting into the ground distracted him as they climbed a low stair to a raised courtyard, where waist-high stone walls flanked by tall greenery blocked his view of the outside.

  As they passed through the inn's wide courtyard, Idisio glanced up: feathery tops of sand-grass and desert bamboo nodded together high overhead, forming a screen against daytime sun. This late in the evening, with the sun already a low shimmer against the western horizon, chunky stone lanterns were being lit.

  Nobody spoke as they walked through the striations of afternoon shade turning into evening shadow. Riss had been subdued for some time, but Idisio didn't think it came from the long climb. Something else seemed to be troubling her, but exhaustion stopped him from asking questions.

  Beyond the courtyard lay a wide room with a scattering of low, desert-style tables. Red and blue sitting cushions leaned in tall piles against the walls, some still bright and new-looking, but most faded and worn. A wide, waist-high table at the far end of the room looked to be covered with plates of food.

  Scratha steered them to the nearest stack of cushions. “Take one and follow me,” he said, lifting a faded red pillow and turning away. Idisio suspected he would have charged over a bed of hot rocks for a promise of sitting down at the end, and Riss probably would have been trying to knock him out of her way. Even Scratha moved more slowly than usual.

  Scratha settled on his cushion, waited until they were all seated, and said, “Customs differ here. Before we move another step, there are a few things we need to settle. First of all: Idisio. You're my servant. Servant to a desert lord means you have status.”

  “Thio,” Idisio said.

  “Good. You have been listening. Yes, you have thio. If I send you on an errand, whether that be fetching water or carrying a message or bedding a woman, you do it. You don't question. And if someone gets in your way, you tell them I sent you and to argue it with me.”

  Idisio stared at his lord. “Bedding a woman?” he said in disbelief.

  Scratha's expression held no humor. “It's been known to happen,” he said. “Politics, Idisio. It's not a nice world you've put yourself into.” His manner softened. “I won't ask that of you. But I've known other lords to order that, and more. Watch yourself. You're probably in more danger than I am, here. Nobody will attack me directly, but you're both vulnerable. And ignorant.”

  He paused. “I didn't want to bring either of you along, remember. I was willing to risk Idisio because he's quick on his feet and with his wits. But you wouldn't listen, and I could see Idisio didn't want to leave you behind.”

  The last comment was obviously directed at Riss. She shot Idisio a startled glance. He felt his face turning a deep crimson and tried desperately to th
ink of something that would change his expression to a cool aloofness.

  “That's another thing,” Scratha went on before they could speak. “Honesty. I'll tell you this right now: by all the gods do not try to lie to anyone here. You don't know who's a desert lord, who's a ha'ra'ha, who's trained in aqeyva. Best to say nothing but truth, and as little of that as you can. Believe me, if I catch either of you in even a small lie here, I'll thrash you bloody myself.”

  Embarrassment gave way to fear: Idisio stared into his lord's dark, dark stare and had absolutely no doubt of Scratha's deadly sincerity.

  “Riss is going to have to be my servant as well, for the time being,” Scratha went on. “She needs the status. You're going to have to get along, Idisio. No more childish sniping and pride contests. On either side,” he added, shooting an equally intense glance at Riss, who had been starting to smile.

  Her smile slid away. “Yes, my lord,” she said meekly.

  “If you're going to accept being my servant,” he said, “you have to accept that you will obey every single one of my commands, no matter how distasteful you may find them. Is that a problem?”