Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert)

by Leona Wisoker

  Alyea looked at Evkit’s smug expression and the glower on Deiq’s face, her heart sinking. She could tell that Evkit hadn’t offered any apology. Deiq was good and stirred up; he glared as though blaming her for the whole incident. She shot a sour glance at Evkit, who seemed entirely unbothered.

  “You give packs, I put packs right places,” the trail guide directed, holding out his hands. “You need balance, you not teyanain. You need free movement, pack throw balance off.”

  Deiq shrugged and tossed his at the guide’s feet, provoking a dark scowl from the man. Idisio, more respectfully, stepped forward to hand his pack over.

  Evkit stood silent, smiling, as the trail guide settled the final burdens on the pony. Then he said, “Go with the gods, Lord Alyea.” He bowed, straightened, and looked at Deiq and Idisio. “Ha’inn: teth-kavit.”

  “Teth-kavit,” Deiq said, sounding anything but sincere. Idisio followed suit, stumbling over what was clearly an unfamiliar phrase for him.

  “Come,” said the guide, and led the pony onto a narrow path that cut between two steep rock faces. Alyea offered Lord Evkit a deep, carefully sincere bow, then turned and followed.

  It didn’t take long to be grateful for not having to carry a pack. The rising sun left large pools of shadow at the bottom of the steep cliffs, but the still air heated fast. Alyea was soon drenched with sweat and sipping almost constantly at her waterskin. In short order, she’d finished the first and started on a second. Idisio was drinking as well, more sparingly, but wasn’t sweating at all, as far as Alyea could tell. She envied him, and suspected it to be a ha’ra’hain trait, since Deiq wasn’t displaying any discomfort, either.

  Then again, Deiq appeared more interested in holding on to his sour mood than in deigning to acknowledge bodily needs. He walked with his dark glare scouring their surroundings, not offering a word to anyone.

  At last the tight canyon widened to a sun-drenched plateau speckled with enormous stones, which had been carved by wind and weather into astonishingly bent, twisted, and stretched pillars of red, orange, brown, and even a strange, glittery black. Desert sage and rosemary bushes spread their desiccated-looking branches wide, their tops looming just shy of tree-height.

  An enormous brown and black bird perched at the top of a particularly large sage bush let out a shrill, warbling cry and spread its wings, beating the air but not taking flight. The trail guide looked up, a smile crossing his dour face, and called out something in a language Alyea didn’t know. Behind her, Deiq snorted and said, “As if the damn thing can understand you.”

  “Bird named Guardian,” the teyanain said, turning his head and looking only at Alyea. “He nest here, many years now. Longer than bird should live. He guard the passage. You come through and you not teyanain, Guardian attack, drive you away.”

  Deiq snorted again. “Superstition.”

  The guide ignored him and turned back to leading the pony, apparently not expecting a response from Alyea. The bird settled down, tucking its wings tightly against itself but continuing to glare; Alyea felt the malicious yellow stare boring into her back for some time.

  They walked for a time in silence. Deiq’s smoldering temper hung like a sullen heat at her back. At last, Alyea decided talking couldn’t make Deiq’s mood any worse, and might improve it. She thought about how to begin, turning over different approaches as they plodded through increasingly sweltering air. The sun raised heat-mirages across the flat areas.

  “Deiq,” she said at last, quietly, not looking back or making any motion. He moved to walk beside her. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Now you ask that?” His tone could have etched steel.

  She shot him a sideways frown, already regretting her decision to talk to him.

  “No,” he said after a moment. “Thank you for securing our release.”

  “It seems to have been a misunderstanding of sorts,” Alyea said, her gaze straight ahead; very aware of the teyanin walking in front of them and the likelihood of a dozen more hiding and watching and listening nearby.

  Deiq grunted. “And snakes fly. Evkit knew exactly what he was doing. What did he say to you?”

  “I’m not going to discuss that right now,” she said, jerking her chin to indicate their guide.

  He grunted again and fell silent, his mood apparently not eased in the least. She repressed a sigh and tried again.

  “All those gifts,” she said, motioning to the laden pony. “I don’t know what to make of them.”

  He gave a more thoughtful grunt than before, then said, “You’re a new desert lord. Scratha ought to have given you as much or more, but I’m guessing once he sorts himself out, he’ll send the gifts directly to your family home in Bright Bay. And the other Families owe you the same courtesy. It’s a way of making sure you have monies to survive on. You can sell the gifts off, or use them to broker an alliance with a merchant who will then funnel a portion of all profit to you. When a Family has multiple desert lords, the later ones get less; but as you’re the first Peysimun lord, you’ll garner quite a hoard.”

  “I thought the Families supported their lords,” Alyea said, startled.

  “A desert lord can require rather a lot of upkeep,” Deiq said dryly, with a sideways glance of his own.

  Alyea sucked in a sharp breath and let it out in a long hiss, then said, “You’re talking about kathain again.”

  “Yes. You may not like it, but you’ll need—”

  “I won’t discuss this.” The image of the older woman on her knees before the younger kathain still made her stomach lurch. All the cant about honor and choice be damned, certain aspects of the southern culture were flat-out insane.

  He shook his head, his expression darkening again, and she gave up trying to talk him out of his bleak mood for the moment.

  “Oruen will owe you as much; you’re living in his city, so he takes on the role of host Family, in a way,” Deiq said after a long silence. “At the same time, he’s going to have to treat you as an equal, and you’re going to have to insist on it. It’s tricky, and unprecedented. You’ll probably need to involve a loremaster at some point, to sort out the proper protocols.”

  He walked without speaking for a time, frowning in concentration. She let him be, relieved that his dark mood was being redirected into something useful.

  At last he said, “Your own family will have to treat you as their most important representative. You’ll be given some time to adjust, but within a fairly short time—a year at best—you’ll be expected to hold to southern custom and host visiting desert lords with full honors. Three days is the rule. More than that is your own decision, but you’re required to offer shelter and protection for three days to anyone of status—mainly desert lords. They’re the ones who travel the most.”

  “I’d think desert lords would be the ones to stay home,” Alyea said, intrigued. “To protect their Fortresses.”

  “No. They’re usually the ones sent out when anything important is involved,” Deiq said, and fell silent again, as though reluctant to explain further.

  When it became clear he’d finished speaking, Alyea said, “What’s the protocol for ha’ra’hain?”

  Deiq shot her a surprisingly hard stare, and she blinked, not understanding how she’d managed to annoy him again with such a logical question.

  “How would you host a demon?” he retorted.

  “What? You’re not—”

  “Just introduce me as a merchant,” he said, “and Idisio as Scratha’s representative. That’s the simplest way. Those who need to know either already do, or they’ll find out in due time.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t be bothered with stupid human protocols,” he said, glaring ahead.

  She drew a breath to say something cutting in response, then let it go in a small sigh and left him to brood in peace. She dropped back a few paces to walk beside Idisio. Deiq didn’t seem to notice, and she suspected the gesture had been wasted on him. But when she glanced at Idisio
, he smiled wanly and nodded, as though to reassure her that she’d done right.

  “I don’t really want any honors, myself,” he said in a low voice. “Scratha’s representative is more than enough for me right now.”

  “Many year ago,” the guide said, his voice carrying in the still air although he didn’t even turn his head as he spoke, “ha’ra’hain were treated as kings. Given every honor, best kathain, anything they wanted. Now, not so much, very little trust left. Northlands very bad that way.”

  “Yes,” Deiq growled, “now it’s even permitted to capture ha’ra’hain, isn’t it? Without apology or consequence.”

  “You talk Lord Evkit,” the guide said. “I not involved in that.” He stopped and turned to face Deiq. The two stared at one another for a few moments; seeing the tension settling across Deiq’s back and shoulders, Alyea bit her lip and glanced around.

  “Deiq,” she said. She could almost feel hidden teyanain readying deadly poison darts all around them.

  The guide said, softly, “Teyanain different, ha’inn. Always. We justice. We not bound to your laws, when you in our lands. You bound to ours. You forget?”

  Deiq stood rigid for a long, frozen moment, then jerked his head sharply, producing a popping noise as vertebrae reset.

  “No,” he said. “I just don’t think that excuses unprovoked attack and kidnap.”

  “You talk Lord Evkit,” the guide said with a shrug. “I not involved in that. I just trail guide.” He inclined his head. “Ha’inn.” He turned around and began leading the pony forward again.

  To Alyea’s relief, Deiq took up the pace without further comment; and if his mood remained black, at least it didn’t descend into open violence.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  As the Horn gentled around them and evening drew closer, long shadows cooled the scorching heat and small animals began to appear: black lizards, red snakes, corn moths and jumping-jokers. Deiq watched them to take his mind off his simmering frustration, and made himself speak long enough to point them out to his companions. After all, he was supposed to be teaching them.

  “That was the symbol for Tehay Family,” he said, deliberately stopping to look at a large rock on which perched a fair-sized black lizard, its crimson throat pouch swelling rhythmically as it stared blankly at them.

  Everyone else had to stop and look, of course. Deiq derived a certain amount of satisfaction from the sour, impatient grunt of their guide.

  “Tehay no longer exist,” the guide said.

  Deiq ignored him. “The black lizard is a symbol of subtlety,” he said. “It’s very intuitive, very quick to solve problems, and not afraid to lose in order to win.”

  “Tehay lost and lost,” the guide said, and laughed.

  Deiq shook his head, motioned to the guide to continue moving, and started walking again himself. “Tehay was a good Family,” he said. “They were tricked.”

  “I seem to remember Lord Eredion saying something about a gambling debt,” Alyea commented, falling in beside him; at the same time, the guide said, “Not proven.”

  “F’Heing,” Deiq answered both of them. “Tehay held most of the Fertile Mountains.”

  “I thought you said F’Heing invaded—”

  He’d expected that protest. “They did,” he said. “It’s complicated, like everything in the southlands.”

  “Glad to be going north,” Idisio muttered.

  “It’s just as complicated in the north,” Deiq assured him. “You have a whole new set of rules to learn there. Alyea will be a useful teacher for that.” He aimed a smile her way, and surprised himself by being sincere with it. She shrugged, her own expression brooding now, and he realized he’d tripped her over into thinking about what lay ahead.

  Not what he’d wanted; but then, he didn’t seem to know from moment to moment what he wanted any more. He hadn’t even been serious in that attempt to rile the teyanain into an attack earlier in the day. While it would have been satisfying on a number of levels, the risk that Alyea would get hurt was too high; he’d left it at verbal sniping.

  Mostly, he admitted to himself as shadows grew over the ground and the air turned bronze with sunset, he was angry that she wasn’t angry. She’d shown no outrage over his imprisonment, hadn’t offered any apology, hadn’t rebuked Lord Evkit publicly. Hadn’t even offered any expression of greeting or relief when Evkit brought his two prisoners out. Her behavior subtly put him into a lesser status; she seemed to have no idea what a gross insult her attitude delivered. She even acted as though she accepted the notion that Evkit had been concerned for her safety—and how Evkit had sold that story to her he very much wanted to know, sooner than later.

  But he couldn’t pry: her mind was shut and locked like a sturdy door. He hadn’t been able to pick up a single stray thought from her all day. Compared to her earlier mental chattering, the new silence was disconcerting and—given that it came after time spent with Lord Evkit—seriously worrisome as well.

  Some drugs blocked mind-speech as effectively as aenstone. Whether Evkit would have given them to Alyea, and how, and why, Deiq had no way of telling. Bringing up the question while on Horn soil seemed unwise at the least and more than likely dangerous, if Alyea reacted with outrage at the prospect of having been unwittingly dosed. He’d have to mention it to her once they reached Bright Bay. He should have warned her long ago against taking any food or drink from the teyanain.

  From anyone she wasn’t entirely sure of, for that matter. Idisio had the right idea on that. No doubt he’d had run-ins of his own that taught the hard lesson; Alyea, apparently, hadn’t been so betrayed before. More than likely, she didn’t understand it had happened even now.

  If it had happened. Deiq snorted, annoyed with himself. The questions that had been haunting him all day weren’t any closer to resolution now than they had been at dawn, and just because he wasn’t on the land of an active ha’rethe didn’t mean it was safe to brood. He was getting careless; not a good survival trait.

  But then, some days he was tired of constantly fighting just to survive; and this was one such day. He’d been having more of them than usual lately.

  A moment later the guide stopped and announced, “We here.”

  A narrow path led almost straight down through the tumbled rocks, a repeat of the morning’s canyon, but at a scramble-steep angle instead of flat.

  “I go, you go,” the teyanain said, pointing to Alyea. “Then you, and you.” He indicated Idisio and Deiq in turn. “You least likely to fall, ha’ra’ha,” he added, nodding to Deiq. “You in rear.”

  Deiq nodded, accepting that rear guard wasn’t a slight in this instance, and followed the single file down the sloping path. He found himself looking forward to Bright Bay—more than usual, at least. It would be simpler. And maybe this time he’d be able to finish his latest project, a secret indulgence he hadn’t told anyone about—and probably never would.

  He knew what they would say. Whether ha’reye or human, they would inevitably have the same reaction, although for vastly different reasons: Foolishness.

  But Meer would have understood. And that, for Deiq, was good enough.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Alyea’s skin was slick with sweat in spite of her loose, light clothing; her calves and shoulders ached from navigating steep slopes and narrow trails for most of the day. Lunch had been a handful of dried fruit and nuts, along with a thick chunk of flatbread. It might have been enough for the scrawny teyanain, but it hadn’t lasted long in Alyea’s stomach, which began grumbling complaints not long after. Deiq passed her some trail jerky from his pack without comment, and that had at least stopped her body from craving more, though her mouth still longed for something better. Trail jerky tasted uniformly horrible to her: oversalted, oily, and rank. She didn’t understand how anyone could survive on it for more than one meal.

  A breeze swirled up to meet them, a salty tinge overriding the usual hot dust and rock aromas. She felt her shoulders loosen with reli
ef at that sign: the ocean wasn’t far away. Below, carts trundled along; groups of travelers walked and rode by. Nobody looked up the slope to the small party standing in plain sight atop a ridge.

  “You go road,” the teyanin guide said, pointing down. “You on road, north, you leave teyanain land. You go south, you back on our land. Lord Evkit say you go north.”

  He scrambled up the rough rock to his left and perched on an outcropping, watching them with an expressionless dark stare.

  “You go,” he repeated, pointing once more.

  “We go,” Deiq muttered. “All right, all right, we’re going.”

  The traffic on the main road seemed to simply swerve around them as they reached the bottom of the steep slope. Nobody looked up to see where they’d come from; most people snuck brief, frightened glances at the newcomers before shying as far away as possible.

  To the south, a twisted, blackened tree with a stone altar at its base was just barely visible; Alyea remembered seeing it on her way south with Chac and Micru. Bright Bay was within an hour’s walk; but she didn’t recall seeing any paths leading west at this point.

  Alyea turned and looked up: a broken tumble of boulders and ragged chunks of rocky scree lay across the area she was sure they had just walked down.

  She found herself on the verge of making the sign against witchery; barked a bitter laugh aloud instead. Deiq and Idisio shot her duplicate inquiring looks. She shook her head in answer and said, “Let’s go.”

  They walked without speaking, each lost in his or her own thoughts and weariness; at last, as the sun melted into the Great Western Ocean, the sandy beaches of Bright Bay came into view. Idisio let out a great, sobbing gasp of relief and looked ready to kiss the ground, then immediately blushed a bright crimson.

  Deiq shot him a sour glare. Alyea smiled, more lighthearted than she’d been all day.