Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (21 page)

“Damnit,” Allonin muttered. “Will you let me do that for you, then? I’m not looking to set you into another panic. Answer me!”

That sharp command provoked a reflexive attempt at obedience. Tank managed to almost roll to one side before his muscles gave out and pitched him flat again. He grunted, then managed a taut jerk of his head.

“I’ll take that for a yes.” Allonin didn’t approach right away; he stood still, his breathing evening out. At last he said, “All right. Stay still, and for the love of the gods remember
when
and
where
you are.”

Tanavin shut his eyes, then opened them, afraid the darkness behind closed lids would make memory more insistent. Even with the lantern-light fraying the edges of his fear, he still heard the ghost-whisper as Allonin approached; vulnerability provoked an echo of childhood helplessness, along with a more recent, and geographically close, moment:

The whisper hovered just at the edge of hearing, beckoning, pulling at him.
Come to me. Come to me. Come this way
...The more he tried to avoid it, the stronger it became, as if he drew closer instead of farther away. At last he sank to the ground and cried in frustration, his legs refusing to take him another step.

If anything had been left in his stomach he would have vomited again. He settled for some racking dry heaves and curled into himself, more miserable than he could remember being in years.

Allo’s never going to speak to me again. He’s going to hate me now...I touched him! I—

Memory of memory: warmth pressing close in darkness, a startled grunt: “Tanavin, no—”

—shocking him out of half-sleep into full awareness of the moment, his hands wrapped around parts of Allonin he’d never so much as thought of touching—

—a hazed misunderstanding, an overwhelming panic that flung him out of the bed, grabbing up clothes, and into a headlong sprint out the door, Allonin bellowing behind him—

And the whisper, tugging, pulling, enticing; promising forgiveness for any sin, any wrong, if only he followed it.

Finally slowing down enough to realize Allo hadn’t been the instigator—and throwing up, right there, so horrified, so appalled—
He’s going to hate me—

“Hush,” Allonin said as he smeared a thick layer of salve down Tank’s right shin. “I don’t hate you, Tanavin. I never did. It wasn’t your fault. I already told you that. It’s
my
fault for being startled into yelling. I handled it poorly, and I put you in danger through my own carelessness. I don’t hate you.”

Tank blinked dazedly, aware only that the pain in his legs was fading as Allonin worked. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Allonin rose, tapping the lid back onto the salve jar with the heel of one hand. He moved away; the sounds suggested he was rearranging his pack, neatly replacing the items he’d removed. He’d always been adamant about being tidy, except for his huge, map-covered desk.

Tank shut his eyes and grimaced, refusing to be drawn back into memory. “What do you want?” he said aloud, his voice peremptory and harsh.

“Why did you run?” Allonin countered, coming back to sit on a chair by the bed.

Tank tightened his jaw and obdurately said nothing.

“Huh,” Allonin snorted. “I wanted to talk to you, actually. Figured on tracking you down through whatever contract you’d taken through the Freewarrior’s Hall
—didn’t
expect you to walk right into me and then
run.”

Tank squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, a dull, achy feeling spreading through his entire body. He
had
called Allonin here, just by thinking of him.
Gods, I don’t want this!

Allonin drew in breath as though to speak, then let it out in a hard
whuoff.
“Don’t be an idiot, boy,” he said. “I’m not here because you
thought
about me. Even a Fortress-bound desert lord isn’t able to pull that off.”

Tank’s whole body tensed, suddenly realizing that wasn’t the first unspoken thought Allonin had responded to. He glared at the man with a mixture of horror and resentment.

His former mentor made an impatient gesture with one hand. “You’re thinking loud.”

“You
are
a desert lord!”

“No.” Allonin’s lips compressed; then, reluctantly, he added, “I never went through the trials. And it’s forbidden for me—for any Aerthraim—to know as much as I do. Don’t talk it around. Please.” He paused, as though waiting for an answer, or perhaps another question.

“Why didn’t
you
train me, instead of Teilo?” Tank demanded.

Allonin looked away, a betraying flinch of movement.

“I wanted to,” he said. “But when Teilo showed up—She asked to be the one to train you, and the mahadrae granted the request. I was allowed to teach you fighting, nothing more. And...the mahadrae didn’t know...everything about what I can do. She still doesn’t, which is why I need you to stay quiet about what you’ve seen tonight.”

Tank just stared at him, bewildered and angry and not at all sure what to say.

Allonin shook his head and said, “Never mind. Back to the point—I’m not here just because you were thinking of me—That’s ridiculous. I came because I never said—and I should have. I’m sorry, Tanavin. For everything.”

“You did what you had to do,” Tank said roughly, and swallowed back his anger, along with an old anguish. A bitter and moldy taste stirred on the back of his tongue.

“I did what I
thought
I had to do,” Allonin said. “I’m wondering now if there were other ways we didn’t want to see at the time.”

“Done is done.”

“Stop throwing cant in my face!” Allonin said with surprising passion.

Tank opened his eyes at that, and focused on his former mentor. Allonin’s face held a grey, taut strain, and his eyes glittered with held tears. Tank had never seen the man so openly emotional before.

“I hated you,” Tank said finally. “I still do. You lied. You used me—and Dasin—for your political games. You could have gotten me killed. You
expected
to get me killed!”

Allonin’s chin tucked closer to his chest, and his expression turned smoky and haunted. “Yes,” he said, barely audible.

Tank drew a breath, forced his voice to emerge harsh and sharp. “So what? It’s over. Forget about it and move on.
I
don’t want to think about it anymore, Allo. I want to
forget
it ever happened. All of it. From my godsdamned birth until about now.”

Allonin regarded him in silence for a time, his brow furrowing into a worried expression, then smoothing out into emotionless lines again. “You’re still trying to be ordinary, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “You’re still playing at being
just a mercenary.”

“It’s not playing,” Tank retorted, pushing up onto his elbows as anger surged through him. “It’s my chosen life. Piss off and leave me to it already! It’s bad enough I have Eredion dragging me into his shitass messes, I don’t need you yanking me into your damn games again too!”

Allonin’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve certainly picked up a mercenary’s mouth,” he noted. “And Eredion’s got trouble now? What’s going on there?”

“Never you mind,” Tank snapped, feeling surly and childish. “It’s not your concern.”

“Don’t be dense. I knew Eredion long before I ever met you, Tanavin.” Allonin’s face twisted briefly, as though with a painful memory of his own. “You may as well tell me, or I’ll just go see him myself.”

“Then go see him.” Tank flung an arm across his eyes, blocking out light and sight together as a headache crashed down out of nowhere. “Tell him you’re taking over for me, and I’m off after Dasin.”

“Dasin?” Allonin’s voice almost squeaked. “He’s
here?”

“Not in Bright Bay,” Tank muttered. Sounds began to acquire a raspy spike of pain. “Off down th’ Coast Road. Gotta catch up... gotta...ehhh.”

The grey haze of pain-escape edged closer.

“Headache?” Allonin said from an unfathomable distance, the word almost too blurred to understand.

“Yehhh.”

Allonin firmly moved Tank’s shielding arm aside, then splayed both hands across his temples, thumbs meeting at the join of nose and eyes. Intense heat seeped into Tank’s skull, easing the pain: it felt like adding slack to a taut internal string.

Tank let out a long exhale of relief as the shattering pain subsided. The sigh turned into a mumbling snore halfway through, and he dropped into dreamless darkness as though falling from a Horn cliff.

On her previous trip south, Alyea had listened to the grating
shiss-hiss
of sand caught between stone and a host of hooves. The sun had blazed down, the air had been dry. Her most serious concern had been keeping Micru and Chac from each other’s throats, and her thoughts had been filled with eager pride over her new status and anticipation of a grand adventure to come: representative of the king! Sent to hold an entire desert Fortress! She’d never dreamed of holding such an exalted position.

Now, her mood considerably bleaker, the weather considerably fouler, and the stakes considerably higher, she rode out of Bright Bay alone, on a sturdy black mare from the king’s stables. He’d long ago given her blanket permission to take any horse she wanted out for a ride; the grooms made no protest on equipping her for a long trip, clearly assuming she had the authority.

One more thing for Oruen to be furious over, when she returned. She didn’t care.

Rain spattered and streamed down her cloak. Occasional gusts of wind flung sprays of water directly into her hood, rendering that semi-protection worthless. The black mare plodded on, head down against the foul weather, uncomplaining but certainly far from enthusiastic.

Deiq hadn’t come this way. Without being entirely sure how she knew that, still she felt positive; and equally positive that he’d been taken south nonetheless. By ship, at her best guess; but a walk through both east and western docksides had failed to trigger any certainty of his passing through those areas. Bound and gagged, unconscious, maybe, but she felt certain she still should have picked up on some resonance of his recent presence.

She almost went back to Eredion, to ask for more information. A stubborn disinclination to be obligated for more help than he’d already provided stopped her. Despite his assurance that this exceptional situation held no price for assistance, she’d grown cynical enough to suspect that promises of that nature weren’t worth a grain of sand in the desert if the advantage lay in reversal.

She’d figure it out herself. And for a person looking for answers, the Horn wasn’t the worst place to start; she suspected the teyanain would be watching for her return, and would have more half-answers to tease her with. The trick would be figuring out what
they
wanted...or, specifically, what Lord Evkit wanted...and teasing them into revealing more than they intended.

Knowing the
what,
however, didn’t mean she understood the
how.
She found herself muttering childhood prayers under her breath, cadenced to the plodding sway of the horse. Amused by that instinctive reaction, she allowed herself to continue, but carefully changed the particulars to reflect the southern, not the northern, pantheon. Attending to that distracted her sour thoughts for a time, leaving her more cheerful with each altered prayer.

Bright Bay lay less than an hour’s ride behind her, and the wind-flung rain had eased to a calmer misty drizzle, when she saw the cloaked and hooded form sitting on a large boulder by the side of the road. A thread of icy caution, feeling like a drop of cold rain going the wrong way, slithered up her spine; the bizarre, in her recent experience, never boded well.

She drew her horse to a halt a cautious distance away and waited without speaking. The stranger stood unhurriedly and pushed the dun-colored hood back, revealing dozens of thin white braids and sharp black eyes in a weathered, ancient face.

Alyea’s breath left her chest all at once, in a shock of bewildered recognition.

The healer advanced two slow steps, her gaze never leaving Alyea’s face. “You appear to have recovered remarkably well,” she said, her thin voice considerably drier than the air.

“Ha’inn,”
Alyea said blankly. It was the term of respect others had used to address Deiq, and seemed the most appropriate response at the moment. “What are you—”

“He didn’t come this way.”

Alyea just stared, for a long moment, while her wits caught up. The last time she’d seen the healer had been at the Qisani, after the blood trial of Ishrai; the old woman had saved her life, then departed with nothing more than an admonition to be careful for a few days. No—that was wrong. The
last
time she’d seen the healer had been at the teyanain fortress. The old woman had been writhing in a tub of bloody water as her own child ripped its way free from her body.

That sight had been horrific enough that Alyea had done her best to forget it, along with the lingering sense of guilt over not finding a way to repay the debt of her own life by saving the healer from that torture. But apparently the woman had survived after all.

She not woman. Not human, not for many years,
Lord Evkit had said, and offered names:
Teilo. Ha’rai’nin.

Memory, inexorable now, flickered more information:
The Jungles really mad now. They want you dead, and want Teilo dead, and want maybe Deiq dead.

“Oh, gods,” Alyea said aloud, putting a hand to her mouth in horror. “Did the Jungles take Deiq? Is that what happened?”

“Maybe,” the old woman—ha’rai’nin—said, folding her arms and scowling up at her. “Maybe not. But he definitely didn’t come this way.”

Alyea drew in a long, deep breath, blinking rapidly. The mare fretted briefly, sidling and tossing her head, as though impatient to continue. Alyea patted the damp neck, murmuring reassurance, then said, “What do you want,
ha’inn?”

For the first time, Teilo smiled, her sour demeanor lightening.

“You’ve grown up,” she noted. “Good. I don’t so much regret saving your life now.”

Alyea gasped and leaned back in reflexive protest at that cruel statement. The mare snorted and shimmied; Alyea grabbed for control and spent several frantic moments fighting to stay in the saddle before the mare calmed with a final head-toss and disgusted huff.