Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) Read online

  I close this letter with gratitude for your assistance and with hopes for a future in which we will both speak honestly and plainly to one another, and use our alliance for the mutual benefit of our respective realms.

  May the gods watch over you and smooth your path with their breath, and lead you into the brightest of possible futures.

  Lord Cafad Scratha

  Regent-Head of Scratha Family

  Scratha Fortress

  A Discussion of

  Desert Family Structure, Leadership,

  and

  Hereditary Positions

  (excerpt)

  Each Family has its own distinct and unique command structure which has evolved, over the years, to best suit its specialties, ethos, and location. Many kingdom residents mistake one as representative of the whole, but this is absolutely not the case. For example, Scratha Family and Aerthraim Family are both matrilineal; however, Scratha was founded with female leadership and has continued that line ever since, meaning that the numainiae, the proper (plural) title for a female Scratha Head of Family, trace their descent back in one unbroken line to the First numaina.

  Aerthraim Family, in contrast, began with an open heredity pattern, meaning that any qualified direct descendant of their leader could be selected by that leader as successor; since the Split, their leadership structure has morphed into various and increasingly bizarre variations, the most recent of which is a strict matrilineal, insular form. Their current title for their female Head of Family is mahadrae, which roughly translates as chosen mother of the free people. This strange designation has ruffled a few feathers throughout the other Families for some years now, as you might imagine, since it implies that while the Aerthraim are free, the rest of us are bound and chained slaves to some inimical force. The fact that the Aerthraim have also refused to allow any desert lords to swear service to their Family name adds in a troubling and strongly offensive element to this perception.

  Such are the subtleties of the world you stepped into when you sent Alyea south to hold Scratha Fortress in your name, Lord Oruen; your advisors have taught you poorly if the above is entirely news to you.

  From the collection

  Letters to a Northern King of Merit

  penned by Lord Cafad Scratha during the reign of King Oruen

  Chapter One

  Song filtered through the air of Scratha Fortress. Deiq lay on his back, watching dust particles drift through the air, and focused his attention on the chant. It came from the other end of the Fortress: Alyea’s hearing would probably never get sharp enough to hear that far, but for Deiq it was a simple matter of screening out all other noises along the way.

  The song clarified: tenor and soprano voices, male and female, wove across a rattling beat from at least three different shabacas, and a piping cactus-flute warbled the main theme:

  Iii-naa tarren . . . iii-nas lalien . . . iii-be salalae . . . .

  The accents and inflections marked the singers as servants rather than nobles. Deiq smiled at the ceiling, reflecting that a thousand years ago there would have been only a jacau-drum beat behind the song, and the singers would have been the leading men of the tribe.

  The chant had run very differently back then: Itna tarnen, itnas talien, itnabe shalla: We empty ourselves into the gods, the gods pour themselves into us, glory be to the gods. Time had changed both pronunciation and meaning; the modern understanding of the old paean was closer to We serve the gods, the gods smile on us, we survive under the glory of the gods.

  Which said a lot about how much humanity had changed since the ha’reye first emerged from their seclusion . . . and how little humans still understood of what they had agreed to.

  These were dangerous thoughts with a full ha’reye beneath the Fortress and a restless, newly bound desert lord pacing around. Deiq distracted himself for a few moments by focusing his vision narrowly enough to track a single dust mote dancing along its erratic path, then widened his vision to take in the entire room without moving his eyes.

  Beside him, Alyea sighed deeply: he blinked back to human-normal vision in case she woke. She rolled closer; he moved an arm and let her tuck in against his side, his mouth quirking in a tired smile. Humans were so damn vulnerable . . . and so stupid at times. Even though he’d promised to protect and guide her, that left a lot of room for interpretation.

  He wouldn’t take that leeway, of course; but Alyea didn’t even understand that it existed.

  Not that she’d had much choice about his presence while she slept. She needed rest before the Conclave, and he wasn’t about to leave her alone again. Besides, the other options for companionship were as welcome as letting an asp-jacau chew his arm off.

  He watched her sleep, reflecting how much more pleasant she was to look at than the grimly suspicious stares of the other desert lords. Her dark hair was half undone from the sensible top-knot that kept desert heat from soaking the back of one’s neck with a continual layer of sweat. Deiq had bound his own hair in a simple tail; perspiring rarely became an issue for him. Alyea’s light clothing, however, already sported several tell-tale dark patches. In true summer it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the weather had begun edging towards the rainy season, and the ambient humidity was climbing rapidly.

  Deiq set his fingertips against Alyea’s temple and gently soothed her body temperature down until the rank sweat-smell faded. She sighed and rolled away again, one arm stretching up over her head and her lithe body twisting like a cat’s; his hands itched to touch her again, with much more than fingertip pressure this time.

  How many times before this have you fallen in love? she’d asked earlier, not understanding at all; and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to explain. She’d looked so hopeful, her dark eyes lit with an intensity he’d seen before; she was still young enough to be romantic, in spite of her insistence that roses wouldn’t mean anything to her.

  He sighed and kept his hands to himself. That would just complicate matters, at the moment. After the disaster her second blood trial had become, she needed extra time to heal—and not just physically.

  So let Alyea think he was in love with her for now. Humans needed that kind of security, and it didn’t really matter. She’d figure it out eventually. Until then, it was pleasant to have her quiet, innocent trust resting against the edges of his mind.

  He knew it wouldn’t last. It never did.

  Eyes half-shut, he watched the dust of decades swirl through shafts of reflected sunlight and listened to the song being sung at the other end of the Fortress.

  Joyfully accepting servitude to invisible forces: how could humans think that way? How could they not understand?

  A sucking weariness passed through Deiq’s entire body for a moment, hazing his vision around the edges; then the haze turned golden, and he felt an immense presence thrust into his mind.

  You fight what you are, the Scratha ha’rethe said. Why? Why do you spend so much time thinking about the humans? Why do you bother? At the least, you could have the dignity to focus on those who choose to serve, instead of the tharr.

  The invisible ones, that meant: the commoners, the ordinary ones whose existence normally didn’t even register with the ha’reye. People like Alyea, before her trials; like Meer.

  Deiq shut his eyes, grimacing, and blocked memory so quickly he barely knew he was doing it himself. The ha’rethe stirred restlessly, its golden stare intensifying.

  Something troubles you.

  Nothing important, Deiq said, infusing his reply with a deliberate boredom. Just remembering one of the more amusing tharr.

  Not amusing at all; but he didn’t want the ha’rethe to pry.

  You waste your time on this, the ha’rethe said, drawn in the direction he’d hoped for. Those who do not serve do not matter.

  It was the old argument, and one he’d never resolved with any of the ha’reye or ha’ra’hain.

  He repressed a sigh, and answered, Don’t they all serve, in the end?

&n
bsp; You indulge in foolishness. The golden haze faded away with the suggestion of an annoyed head-shake. Deiq let out a long, quiet breath, feeling as though a dangerous precipice had just smoothed out into relatively stable terrain.

  Brooding would only attract the ha’rethe’s attention again, and draw them into an argument Deiq preferred to avoid, so he gently nudged Alyea’s shoulder with a bent knuckle to wake her. She rolled towards him as she opened her eyes; the movement put her right up against him, her dark stare inches from his face. The moment hung and stretched; he stayed very still, as though to avoid startling a wild creature.

  At last Alyea blinked, awareness dawning in her expression, and scooted hurriedly away from him. “How long have I—?”

  “Almost time for Conclave,” he said, sitting up and looking away to give her some sense of privacy. Her withdrawal wasn’t surprising; it was a matter of instinct for any human to back away from close contact with a ha’ra’ha. Desert lords trained themselves to overcome that instinct, which only proved how damned stupid humans could be.

  A faint burning ache passed across his chest.

  He shut down that emotion-laden line of thought before he attracted the ha’rethe’s attention again. Foolishness, it had scolded; not the first time he’d been faced with that accusation, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  He manufactured a pleasant expression for Alyea’s benefit and suggested, “Let’s go get some food before Conclave starts.”

  That trivial normality relaxed her vague disquiet instantly. As he let her lead the way to the kitchens of Scratha Fortress, he held back a sigh at how simple maneuvering a human, even a desert lord, always was; and only then realized that he’d hoped Alyea, somehow, would be different.

  Chapter Two

  The two largest rooms in Scratha Fortress, by far, were the formal dining hall and the teuthin, which Deiq translated as meeting place.

  “Bit more complicated than that, of course,” he added as he walked with Alyea through the quiet corridors towards the Conclave. Servants moved about in groups, discussing in low voices how to allocate tasks; Alyea recognized the scene as typical of an influx of wholly new staff as yet unaccustomed to working together.

  She’d seen it at home twice: once after her father died, when her mother had inexplicably swept out the old servants and replaced them with almost all new; and again after her whipping, as though to deter such betrayals in the future. Or perhaps Lady Peysimun simply couldn’t stand having servants who had watched her daughter being publicly whipped and humiliated.

  Alyea had never asked; had never wanted her suspicions confirmed. Her mother could be remarkably shallow at times.

  Deiq’s quiet, velvet voice brought her out of brooding.

  “A teuthin is by implication any neutral ground, where grievances are either set aside or resolved without violence. It’s a place where everyone’s status is the same, where all voices can be heard and even the poorest commoner has the right to speak his mind freely to the lords of his land. I believe there’s even a story or two about a commoner so impressing the gathered lords that he was adopted into a desert Family on the spot . . . It’s the sort of legend that humans seem to love hearing.”

  Deiq seemed completely unselfconscious about referring to himself as non-human—at least when they were alone. In mixed company, around those who might not know his background, he tended to pass himself off in roles of rich merchant or mysterious quasi-noble.

  She thought about how long he’d been concealing his nature, wondered who else knew the truth about him, and mused how lonely it must be to lie to everyone he met.

  He glanced at her, an odd sideways motion filled with amusement.

  “Very few, to answer one of your questions,” he said, a smile tugging at his thin lips. “All the Fortress Heads know what I am, and the loremasters, of course; but even most of the desert lords you’ll meet don’t need to know that I’m anything but a rich merchant or—” the amusement in his voice deepened: “—mysterious quasi-noble. Thank you; I do like that phrase.”

  Alyea blinked, taken aback at how easily he could read her, and tried to cover her thoughts more securely. She had to stop walking to concentrate, and Deiq paused as well, the smile still on his face as he watched her efforts.

  Noise scratched at her inner ear: the murmur of someone talking in a nearby room. A moment later her pulse overrode the distant voice, then faded away. She shook her head, hard, as though that could secure her hearing in one range. It seemed to help; her hearing stabilized long enough for her to construct a mental image of walls around her mind.

  “Better,” Deiq said at last. “Good enough for most of the desert lords you’ll encounter. But why does it even bother you in the first place? I’m your guardian, Alyea; I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She shook her head, not sure how to answer, and started walking again. He stayed by her side, dark and sober now, and let the moment pass.

  The teuthin of Scratha Fortress was round and dominated by an enormous circular table crafted from black hardwood. The table’s thick layer of varnish caught and refracted orange evening sunlight, swirling it into the illumination cast by the lamps: large versions of the smokeless green-oil lamps she’d seen at the Qisani during her second blood trial. Rough grey stone lay in great slabs underfoot and tapestries covered the pale stone walls, each hanging representing one of the Families gathered around the table.

  The Scratha Family banner, hung behind Lord Scratha’s chair, depicted a bright green lizard perched on a wide-leaved plant, its thick tail seeming to merge into the ground with the central stalk. Alyea admired the fine stitching and bright colors, wondering whether the plant and the designs meant anything.

  “The plant is desert ginger,” Deiq murmured in her ear as they sat down. He ignored her sharp glare and went on, “The lizard represents subtlety and sharp perception; the ginger relates that to the heart and spirit. The color green ties it into life. Now here’s something interesting: see the angle formed by the tail and the leaves? If you traced that out, you’d find the symbol for a desert animal called a groundhog; that symbolizes community. Putting this banner up says that Scratha’s intentions are to draw the community around the table together and promote understanding among the desert Families. It’s the banner Scratha has almost always used at Conclaves.”

  She tried to attend to what he was saying, but a dull feeling of resentment crawled along her spine. He just reached into her head and pulled out whatever he felt like listening to, and she had no such option; it made her feel exposed, and vulnerable, and afraid at a gut level that went past rational thought. Something about the way he looked at her, sometimes, reminded her of a snake about to strike, or a hawk ready to stoop on its prey; and despite his assurances that he wouldn’t hurt her, she couldn’t bring herself to fully trust his intentions.

  He lies, Chacerly had said with decades of pain in his voice. You can’t trust him.

  Not that Chac had proved trustworthy; he’d be going home with the Darden contingent, if she understood matters correctly. Meaning Micru could be traveling with Sessin . . . and Micru, while more respectful, had still treated Deiq with a wary reserve. The way the other desert lords regarded Deiq suggested their mistrust ran just as deep.

  And she’d agreed to let Deiq be her guide for the next year. She bit her lip and tried not to think about it, hoping Deiq hadn’t already heard her. But if he had, he made no sign; his dark gaze moved from the faces at the table to the tapestries on the walls.

  Deiq said, in a barely audible voice aimed for her ear alone, “I’m not entirely sure Scratha knows what his own banner means. Much less some of the others displayed here today.”

  His gaze rested on the banner over Lord Evkit’s head: against a background of dark and light green stripes, a great horned owl stared to the left, wings partially spread. Beside it, facing the opposite direction, a badger crouched, mouth slightly open in a ferocious snarl. The feathery leaves and heads of angelica plants
in full bloom were picked out in detail in each corner of the banner, using fine white thread.

  A troubled expression settled on Deiq’s face, but before he could say anything more, Lord Scratha rose from his chair and began to speak.

  “I declare this Conclave open; the required number of Family representatives are in attendance, and time has been given for all to arrive, rest, and arrange themselves in readiness. Are there any protests as to the opening of this Conclave?”

  No voice offered argument.

  “Very well.” Scratha nodded to the servants waiting by the four sets of massive metal doors set at equal intervals around the room; they turned and began tugging the doors shut, leaving the room in the process. “Let the understanding of the south, the responsibility of the west, the wisdom of the north, all come together and merge with the new beginnings of the east to inform and ease this gathering.”

  As he named each direction, another door clanged shut. He didn’t look towards the sound, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular and his tone vaguely impatient, as though he found the ritual tiresome and meaningless.

  A few dark frowns appeared on faces around the table, but nobody protested. Deiq’s troubled expression remained, and he crossed his arms as he watched the remainder of the Scratha lord’s invocation. Alyea took the opportunity to study the other lords around the table.

  While everyone around the table wore fine clothing, it tended towards a simple cut and presentation. Scratha and Lord Evkit were the only exceptions; both had woven their hair into dozens of thin, bead-laced braids, and Scratha’s forearm bracelets were the most intricate Alyea had ever seen. Rather than flexible strips wound around the arm, as most of the southern bracelets seemed to be, several of Scratha’s bracelets extended a finger’s-width above the skin, supported by a rigid metal frame; they gave the man a barbaric, intimidating appearance.