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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. . . .
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.
“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.

“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.

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.”