“Well, it’s a standard in every desert story, isn’t it?” Idisio seemed to be watching a great red-tailed eagle soar on the rising dawn breeze. “The ancient city, buried under the sands. And then there’s a wanderer who stumbles into it, and finds a trapped spirit, and talks to it…and there’s usually some sort of treasure involved. Or a quest. Or something.”
Deiq stared, speechless. At last he managed, “It is? Really?”
Idisio laughed. Dawn light edged his smooth, fair skin with a golden tint and caught greenish highlights from his grey eyes. “You never heard any of those tales?”
Deiq shook his head slowly, fascinated. “Tell me one….”
Idisio pondered for a time, then said, “All right. I’m no bard, mind you. But there’s one story I’ve always liked….”
In the dead wastes of the kingdom-that-was lies a crypt; a grave, from the days when stone was worked with tools that cut through granite as though it were only clotted milk, and the bodies of even the common-born were buried entire, rather than set into bone-boxes or ground up for fertilizer. In those days, beautiful trees raised their arms to the sky, and water moved freely across the surface of the land, laughing and sparkling like rivers of liquid blue diamonds; the air-spirits walked in bodies of gold, and the earth was cool and black with life.
In those days, there was a leader, a kaen, a man of surpassing strength and virility, with many women attending to his many desire. And it came to pass that the one thing he most desired, he could not have; no woman quickened with his seed. He had no children, for all his many wives, and while he put this woman and that woman aside, at last he was forced to admit the fault lay within himself.
Deiq let out a snort; shook his head at Idisio’s inquiring look, and waved the boy to continue.
This troubled the kaen mightily, as well it might. His lands, rich as they were, would quickly be torn apart by his three younger brothers, all of whom desired to lead after the kaen passed from this world, and none of whom were competent to do so. The kaen summoned healers and wise men from all over the lands, and consulted seers and mystics until his head swam from all the incomprehensible things they told him. At last, befuddled and angrier than ever, he sent them all away, no closer to a course of action that would gain him legitimate children; and he went out to walk his lands with a hood over his face and his leadership staff and chain left behind.
This was a common thing, you must understand, that the kaen did such a thing; while his advisors spoke against it, still be went walkabout often. His subjects were accustomed to treating all strangers with courtesy in case such a visitor turned out to be their kaen in disguise, and the kaen was accustomed to being received with great courtesy everywhere he went, with or without his marks of leadership.
So you can imagine the kaen’s surprise when he stopped at a well near the center of his lands and was rudely pushed aside by a fat old man.
Deiq made a face. Idisio paused, eyeing him warily until Deiq waved for him to go on.
“No drinking here today!” the fat man declared. “I’ve claimed this well for mine, and you shan’t have any!’
“This is a public well,” the kaen pointed out, amused by what he took to be a madman; for the fat man’s eyes had a glaze never seen in one wholly rational.
“Not any longer!” said the fat man. “It’s mine now. And the only way you’ll drink from it is if you come to me with your firstborn child.”
Now the kaen began to get angry. “You have no such authority,” he said. “Step aside, befure you go to the guards!”
“If you touch me,” said the man, “this well shall instantly go dry, and your entire lands, O kaen, will then go as dry as your loins.”
The kaen stood up straight and put his hood back.
“How do you know who I am?” he demanded.
“Never mind that,” the man said. “None shall drink from this well, until you come to me with your firstborn child.” He smiled, and it was a thing of terrible evil, that smile.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Deiq muttered. “No, no, keep going, Idisio.”
“It’s how I heard it,” Idisio said defensively.
“Keep going.”
“How dare you!” raged the kaen, and losing his temper, laid hands on the man to thrash him for such impudence. Upon the moment he touched the fat man’s sleeve, the entire of the man within the robes disappeared, and the kaen was left holding only a greasy, ragged scrap of cloth.
A strange sucking sound came from the well, and the kaen rushed over to look; and indeed, all the water drained as though a great plug had been pulled, and within two breaths only black mud remained at the bottom. A great wailing went up from all around him, as the other wells, rivers, lakes, and fountains all vanished the same way and with the same speed; and the kaen stood aghast at what his pride had caused.
Deiq pursed his lips and stayed silent as Idisio went on. The young ha’ra’ha’s eyes were shut now, his thin hands moving in great descriptive swoops.
For all the rest of his days the kaen sought to find some word of the fat man, to trace down his identity; and just as ardently sought to produce a child, submitting to every indignity and procedure his healers and sages heaped upon him. Both efforts were to no avail, and he died younger than his father had, and was buried in a great crypt in the center of his lands.
His people tried, as the lands dried around them, to draw the favor of the gods back upon them. They held great ceremonies begging for forgiveness. They sacrificed animals, criminals, even young children in an effort to appease the angry gods. Nothing worked, and at last they left the barren land, carrying all they owned on their backs and in carts. Some went north, and some went west; some east, and some south.
From that scattering came the desert Families. The great central desert remains empty to this day, but for the restless ghost of the old kaen; still looking for some way to produce an heir, to find that evil fat man, and to return his lands to their former lush glory.
Idisio drew in a long breath, let it out, then opened his eyes, which widened at Deiq’s expression. “Deiq?” he said worriedly. “Did I say something wrong…?”
City of the Godspeakers, date unknown
Gauzy white curtains shimmied and writhed in a light evening breeze. Jine looked through them wistfully, thinking of standing in the face of that cool wind, but stayed obediently on her low stool. Evening was a time of demons and danger, even here in the city of the godspeakers. She wouldn’t be permitted to step out onto the balcony until full night had fallen, by which time the breeze would have subsided.
Her guardian, Beni, seemed oblivious to the implicit promise of the breeze as she continued working scented oil over Jine’s bald scalp and down her neck. The older woman’s fingers moved with steady confidence; the oil eased dry skin and muscle tension as well as protecting Jine from the night-bugs and any residual air-demons.
Chitters, grackles, and craws echoed through the cooling air as nocturnal wildlife stirred into activity throughout and around the palace. Beni worked oil along Jine’s shoulders and arms, as silent as the bugs had become noisy. Not for the first time Jine found that an annoying trait, but there was no helping it. Beni was intin: servant to royalty. To keep her from speaking any words that might anger the gods or her earthly masters, her tongue had been removed, her hearing destroyed. Her dark ears, ritually notched like an inverted set of wheel spokes, bore no jewelry which might inadvertently mask her status.
Jine sighed and stared out through the curtains again as Beni begin smoothing the sacred oil down her bare back. This daily ritual was beginning to lose its comfortable feel; Jine found herself growing increasingly restless each time she endured it.
The breeze stirred the curtains, bringing a whisper of sound along with the motion this time: a sigh, almost a word. Almost….
Jine tilted her head and leaned forward slightly, half-closing her eyes to listen.
Intin, the breeze said.
Beni’s hands stilled. Glancing at her, Jine saw the woman’s thick features caught in an expression of awed wonder.
Intin…The whisper hung heavy with indefinable promise, with a tantalizing near-vision of something indescribably beautiful.
Beni stood, her gaze hazy. The oil pot tipped from her hand, spilling its contents across the floor.
“Beni, no,” Jine blurted, leaning forward to catch at the woman’s sleeve. Panic washed through her, a sense of dreadful wrongness.
Shhhhh…the wind whispered.
Jine dropped her hand slowly, reluctantly. Something was wrong…still, she felt powerless to do anything but sit, half-oiled and wholly naked, on the stool, and watch Beni walking steadily towards the curtains.
Beni passed through the curtains and became, briefly, a thick, dark outline against the pale linen: then vanished from sight.
A faint thump sounded from the stone-inlaid patio far below.
Jine sat frozen with something more than horror; her body simply refused to move. A wave of dizziness swirled over her.
A dark form appeared against the pale line of curtains. It stood looking through for a moment, then pushed the fabric aside and stepped into the room.
Tall and darkly handsome, with eyes blacker than midnight and a narrow, fine face: still, there was no doubt in Jine’s mind that little if any human blood ran in this man’s veins. “Hakinn,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to the ground, and felt an entirely new fear shivering through her.
She could feel him studying her, and fought the urge to cover herself against his gaze. As representative of the gods, he saw her most intimate thoughts. What use to cover her flesh, then?
“She wanted to die, but was too afraid to take the step towards that wish,” the hakrakha said, remaining where he stood. She could hear the curtains fluttering against his back as another breeze swept by. “I gave her what she dared not reach for herself.”
Jine stayed still, breathing evenly, her gaze resolutely on the floor. “I had no idea,” she said.
“Of course not. She couldn’t very well tell anyone, could she?” His voice was deep with amusement. “Do you know, ska-kaensa, what is involved in making your precious intins?”
“Yes. Of course I do.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me what’s involved.”
Jine swallowed back a protest that women weren’t supposed to speak of such things: this was a representative of the gods. If he asked it, she must obey.
“Their tongues and ears are sealed to silence,” she said in a low voice.
“How is this done, ska-kaensa?”
“Acidic drops are put into their ears; their tongues are…are cut out.” Somehow, when the priests had explained the process, it hadn’t seemed odd; but now, hearing the words in her own voice, she felt her stomach lurch.
The hakrakha said, “And their ears are notched. Don’t forget that part.” The mild neutrality of his tone carried more mockery than outright contempt.
“I have not forgotten,” Jine said. “They are also no longer able to bear children. I remember it all. I was there when Beni took her oath.” Her brother Edin had warned her that this one liked to play games, and that she was not to back down or show weakness if he ever chanced to visit.
“Did you watch the mutilations?”
“No—”
“No, that wouldn’t be fitting for the ska-kaensa, would it?”
Jine ignored the dark sarcasm. It was nothing but a test of her faith in the laws. She gathered her courage and said, “Hakinn, Beni knew what she faced. Why would she want to die from living with nothing but what she had agreed to endure?”
There came a long silence. “You humans,” the hakrakha said at last, “really astonish me sometimes.”
Jine stared at her feet and said nothing aloud. Inwardly, she wondered. This didn’t sound like the words of a sacred spirit made flesh; didn’t sound like an ally of the gods, even. Her pulse quickened: was this a demon in sacred guise, not a proper hakrakha at all?
“The gods weren’t the ones who created the intins,” the hakrakha growled. “Humans were.”
Silence fell, thick and heavy. After a while, Jine moved her gaze cautiously towards the balcony curtains, careful to watch only the floor. Finding nothing but the line of curtain flittering through the uncertain lamplight, she risked glancing around more freely.
She was alone.
For the first time since puberty, she was alone. No intin to watch over her, no godspeaker to shield her from the evening blandishments of evil spirits, not even an asp-jacau to watch for snakes.
She sat still and alone on her stool, utterly petrified, and waited for disaster to strike.
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